


Be All Our Sins Remember'd

by chrissie0707



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brother Feels, Gen, Hurt Dean, Hurt/Comfort, Mark of Cain, Protective Sam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 18:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 100,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8025256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrissie0707/pseuds/chrissie0707
Summary: There are shadows left behind by a thousand moments and a thousand moods, of needs traced here on the walls by men who are gone. This is the record of their being here. WIP, set between 11.03 and 11.04. H/C, feels and Mark of Cain fallout woven throughout.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This WIP story is being crafted in honor of the ten-year anniversary of my first SPN fic, Roadside Casualties, and I had the thought a few months ago of marking that with a giant, epic fic built around and prompted by lines pulled from all of my previous SPN fics. Turns out, there've been a few.
> 
> So, all the shout-outs in all the land go to my wonderful friend Nova42, who not only put her brilliant mind into action helping me come up with a plot for this beast, but also took on the nearly insane task I assigned her, of pulling a line from each and every one of those 92 (EEP!) stories, all of which are posted on FF.net under the same penname. It was a lot to ask of her, and I was super annoying about it, and I think I owe her a store-bought homemade pie now. 
> 
> This story takes place between 11.03 "The Bad Seed" and 11.04 "Baby", and is going to be another WIP posting. I'm super excited about this story, and the list of lines I have to include are going to be both challenging and fun to incorporate. There will be mysteries to unravel, and should be some angst and a lot of H/C - and I'm really going to work on that "C" part I've been told I tend to forget - and some MoC fallout woven in, because I wanted to.

Sammy doesn't need to know he's still having nightmares – that he never truly _stopped._ The dreams Dean's having now are just…different. But no less intense.

They're putting on a decent-enough show – both of them – but the Mark of Cain and its influence aren't so far behind in the rearview mirror for the damage it had wrought to be forgotten.

The nights still pass mostly sleeplessly and certainly restlessly, once twisted by horribly vivid nightmares that left Dean drained and aching, _burning_ with a fever too high to really survive. Without the Mark, he may not have. Now, hours spent attempting slumber are consumed by chilling, surreal remembrances of exactly what he'd done, how far he'd gone to satisfy the bloodlust. A suffocating, nonstop procession of the faces of those he's hurt.

Some are strangers, bloodied and pulped and slashed beyond recognition; poor, nameless bastards who would have been left to live under other circumstances, because he and his brother have never been _killers._ There are a select few who'd deserved it, who had _earned_ exactly what Dean gave them. Those for whom he feels regret, but no remorse. The ones he's not unhappy are dead, even if he _is_ sorry to be the reason why.

Some faces are those of friends – of _family_ – beaten down by his hand. Sam, and Cas. Charlie. _God, Charlie._

The nightmares are different, and so is the task of escaping them. He doesn't often startle awake and upright; it takes time now, for Dean to dig himself out. Then he lies still, drenched in a cold sweat, staring at the ceiling and sluggishly blinking away the images of their wounded, disappointed faces as he struggles to catch his breath.

_I'm so sorry, kiddo._

_You and Sam stay the hell away from me. Next time I won't miss._

_Close your eyes. Sammy, close your eyes._

And sometimes, when he blinks too long, she slips in through the cracks – the _canyons_ – left behind in all the places the Mark was torn from.

Dean has more questions than he does answers, but the Mark of Cain is gone, so the presence of the Darkness in his thoughts is pretty low on his list of _Shit Sammy Needs to Know Right Now._

The Mark's _gone_ , and in its place is…well, Dean doesn't know if he's yet in a position to begin to figure out what exactly has taken its place. Who he is now, and if that man is anyone resembling the man he was before. He's not sure he's worked far enough through the weighty exhaustion pressing down on him since they unleashed that dark, ominous cloud upon the world. Not to mention the extremely demanding pain left by Castiel's fists. Because he got what he gave, that's for damn sure. Traded bruised, bloodied knuckles for a bruised, bloodied face.

_It's fine, Cas. Besides, I had it comin'._

These aren't wounds that are going to fade overnight, and this isn't a tired that can be slept away, but Dean gives it a go. He's not sure how long he sleeps after he stagger-limps to his room under Sam's nauseatingly close supervision, but he's in and out of consciousness for what feels like an eternity. When he finally wakes, his head seems to weigh a hundred pounds and the knuckles of his right hand ache with the phantom pains of the swings he's taken at those he loves, and he's overcome with the unmistakable sense that someone's been in his room. A tickle at the edge of his left ear brings him to raise a shaky hand to investigate, and he discovers a long-thawed ice pack on the pillow, level with where his thrashed face has just been. _Sam._

He rolls to the right and finds a glass of water on the table next to his head, a plate holding a sandwich stacked generously with some sort of lunchmeat that looks and smells fresh enough. Dean leverages up on an elbow and rubs the stickiness of too much sleep from his eyes. With a somewhat clearer gaze, he also finds a small pile of flat white tablets – the good stuff – lying atop a yellow sticky note that announces in his brother's tight scrawl, _Don't take these unless you eat something._

He pushes up farther in bed and surveys the dark, vaguely unsettling and unfamiliar landscape of his room. It'd been tossed, days ago, and while he'd long ago grown accustomed to the persistent exhaustion and headache, he hasn't yet gotten well enough reacquainted with extended consciousness or coherency to put his belongings back in order. Just inside the door, there's a box of things brought back from the towering pile in the library, unwashed, unpacked and giving the room a faint scent of gasoline that isn't necessarily unpleasant, though the implications might be.

Dean groans and rolls out of bed, sets his bare feet on the cool concrete floor. The pills are appealing but the sandwich seems like too much work for his sore jaw, and from what he remembers of the last time he was in the same room as his brother, Sam's not really looking to be the sort of nursemaid who turns a blind eye and lets Dean break the rules. In fact, he's probably fortunate he wasn't marched into an ER that night. _Nosey little son of a bitch._ But Dean owes him one – owes him _more_ than one – and he can let Sammy call the shots. For now. He's not so sure he should be the one leading the charge, anyway; not when his head is roaring and pounding so badly he can hardly think straight, and his left eye's having a hell of a time focusing on anything more than a foot out from his face.

He gropes on the floor for a pair of jeans and drags them on, hopping somewhat shakily to his feet. He's feeling a bit nauseous in a familiar way, knowing well enough that it's likely hunger and dehydration, and guesses that eating something wouldn't be the _worst_ idea.

Dean runs his tongue over the fuzz on his teeth and makes a pit stop at the narrow sink. He has no desire to sneak a peek at his reflection but his eyes are drawn upward anyway and, _God,_ he looks like shit. He knows he's slept some but certainly doesn't look it. He's red-eyed and pale, shadowed and bruised. Oh, _hell yes_ , he's bruised. The swelling's gone down some but his jaw and cheekbone are impressively blackened, and when he raises a hand to probe at his cheek, a sharp bite of shifting bone brings him pulling his fingers away with a harsh intake of air.

 _Fuck_ , but Cas has a mean right hook. Something Dean already knew, he supposes, and in case he forgets again, this reminder looks like it will linger for a while.

He splashes some cold water on his face and scrubs a hand through hair that is admittedly gross-feeling, but decides that he really should probably think seriously about some food if he wants to stand up long enough to subject himself to a shower. And coffee. Yeah, he'd _kill_ for a cup of coffee.

It takes a moment to shake that thought from his mind, and an odd tremble from his hands, before Dean can jerk open the door to venture out into the dim hallway.

Without enough energy to put up a front for his brother, he pads into the library with bare feet, in a wrinkled, fairly ripe-smelling t-shirt and jeans. He stops on the threshold at the sight of said brother hip-deep into some marathon cleaning session, and rubs the back of his sore neck, seriously contemplating pulling a one-eighty before Sam spots him. But he's just not the sort of the guy who has that kind of luck.

"Hey," Sam greets him, too brightly. Way too goddamn cheerily. And so… _loud._ "Look. It walks. Or, sort of, anyway."

Dean curls his lip in response, shuffles completely into the large room and sinks gingerly into a chair at the table across from his brother. "Yes, it walks," he returns, wincing around the pain caused in his battered cheek and jaw from speaking. "It walks and talks and ties its own shoes."

"You're not wearing shoes."

"Two outta three ain't bad."

Sam jerks a thumb behind him, with the hand not gripping a stack of books. "There's still coffee."

Dean looks longingly in that direction, but can't imagine dragging himself upright again just yet. There's not much to say about the kid's timing. "I just sat down."

"I'll get it," Sam offers, setting his stack of books aside.

After a brief internal battle of pride and will, Dean shakes his head. "Nah, I'm good." He scrubs once more at the back his neck, kneading an insistently sore spot. "How long was I…?"

Sam sneaks a peek at his watch. "Uh, two days? Give or take?"

Dean raises his eyebrows as his stomach growls an aggressive agreement of Sam's assessment. "Damn."

"Well, you've been through a lot." He doesn't like the way his little brother's eyebrows draw together in concern, in _how are you, really?_ Sam frowns, raises a hand in a vague gesture to his own face. "You sure you don't want Cas to – "

"No, Sam, it's fine. Really." It's not _fine_ ; it hurts like a motherfucking son of a bitch just to _speak_ , but it's too much to ask of Cas, and it's the least he deserves, after everything. A teaspoon of pain in exchange for all of the suffering he's doled out.

"You sure? Because it looks…" Sam swallows, takes his time choosing his words. "It looks like it hurts."

Dean huffs, drops his hand and eyes to the table. "Yeah, well. What goes around comes around, I guess." The longest string of words he's put together so far, and he winces as it sends another shockwave of pain through his cheek and jaw.

"Dean…"

He raises his gaze to his brother, says low and steady, "don't, Sam. Seriously." Dean tears his eyes away and looks around the room, taking in the row of boxes along the perimeter of the library, the seemingly organized stacks of books covering damn near every inch of available table space. "You've been busy," he notes. "Hey, didn't you do this already?"

It's one of their stronger – though not necessarily always positive – shared traits. Boiling an intense, serious, complicated issue or event down to its simplest form of acknowledgement. _Didn't you do this already?_ he asks. Clean up the mess I left you, he means. The bodies, the blood. The pile of treasured belongings seconds away from being set ablaze. And at the time, he couldn't have cared less.

"Oh." Sam looks around the room, dropping his hands to his hips. "Yeah. I mean, I cleaned up before, but I, uh…I dunno. I've just had some free time the past couple of days."

Dean doesn't want to remember walking back into the bunker, smelling death, bleach and gasoline, but he does. Doesn't want to remember that he came seconds and inches from losing absolute control…but he does.

He pushes up from his seat, desperate for a distraction. "I should help you with this."

Sam raises a hand. "No, it's okay. I've got it."

"Sam – "

"Really, Dean. It's cool. I've got a system." He lifts a shoulder, smiles. "Besides, you and cleaning? Oil and water, man."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Dean sinks back into his chair, slowly, as each and every sore and abused muscle howls in protest of this latest movement and his head pounds like he's got a subwoofer sounding off behind his brain. "Any news on any of the, uh…" He rubs his eyes with his thumb and index finger, waves his left hand over his head.

"Not as much, no. It's been…quiet."

Dean lets his hand fall with a _smack_ against the tabletop. "I know no news is supposed to be good news, but…"

"With us, it's usually more 'the calm before the storm.' Yeah, I know." Sam takes a breath, drops his shoulders. He starts sifting through the books on the table between them, like a lack of eye contact is going to soften the delivery of what he says next. "I guess as soon as you and Cas are feeling up to it, we can get back out there and – "

"I'm fine, Sam."

One large leather-bound tome _thwacks_ atop another. "Dean, this is the first time you've really STOPPED since the Mark of Cain…and that's only because a roided-up Cas used you as a punching bag. _After_ you woke up in a field a mile from the car with no recollection of how you got there. And you haven't slept in…do you even know?" Sam pauses, scratches at the side of his face. "Let's just…take a break, man. Things are quiet. Embrace it."

Sam's tone is amazingly indifferent, but it's a plea and a command at the same time, and Dean doesn't quite have the energy to fight with his brother. Especially not when they both know the kid's right. He purses his lips, subjecting himself to another rocket of agony through his face. "Sure."

"Yeah?" Sam asks, in obvious relief, but still hesitant. Still knowing his brother better than Dean is oftentimes comfortable with.

He bobs his head slowly. "Yeah, you're right."

"Okay." Sam nods. "All right. So, we'll just…take a break."

Dean drums his fingers on the tabletop, watches as his brother goes about moving more books from one stack to another with a sort of deliberation he can't begin to make sense of. Exhaustion presses down on his head and shoulders and he gives into the weight, sliding lower in his seat.

For Sam, taking a break might mean carving out time to pick new curtains for the Batcave, but as much as Dean hates to admit it, the son of a bitch really is right. Because for Dean it means catching up on about four years' worth of sleep.

"Hey." Sam frowns, stops Dean as he's finally pushing up from the table. "Eat something before you crash again."

"Nag, nag, nag," Dean complains over his shoulder, but good-naturedly, knowing full-well he's got a lot of nagging coming his direction, given the events of the past year and a half.

"Yeah? Get used to it." Seems like Sam's not looking to sidestep the issue, either.

Dean narrows his eyes. "There's coffee?"

Sam nods. "Yeah, unless Cas wandered out and found it. But I haven't seen him around in a few days, either. Not since…you know."

Dean's bruised eye thrums a pulse, like his heart has leapt up from his chest into his abused face while he wasn't paying attention. Yeah, he knows. "All right," he says tightly. "Just don't… _mess_ with anything. Whenever you get the cleaning bug up your ass you always put things where I can't find them."

The too-bright smile is back on his brother's face. "Scout's honor."

Sam's grin is so big and nauseatingly forced, Dean decides on skipping the coffee, a choice he hopes not to come to regret later in the day.

*****************************************************************

Dean snaps awake with a suddenness that would have been painful even if not for the persistent fire raging in his injured face and his sore…everything else. It's like smacking into a brick wall of consciousness, and it's a feeling he hasn't missed.

 _Goddamn._ He sucks in a harsh breath and sits up in bed with a groan, dragging a cautious hand down his bruised face. He slaps at the base of the lamp to his right until a soft light invades the room with the _snap_ of the switch, and he squints at the face of his watch. There are things that have required some recalibration since moving into the bunker. Simple things, like using the presence of natural light to determine the time of day upon waking.

It's night, late but not too; he's slept through most of another day. Dean pushes his hand through his hair, almost like he can drag the remnants of this latest nightmare from his mind, catch them between his fingers and drop them to the floor. Something else Sam can flitter about cleaning up.

Maybe he can't drag them away, but he can wash them away, like he has a hundred other nightmares.

Dean rolls to the side, biting his lip against the protest rising in his sore ribs, and gropes blindly on the floor until his fingertips graze the neck of a bottle. He grabs it up eagerly, needing the memories to be _gone_ , needing to take a layer off of the pain, but finds the pint already empty. _Perfect._

He spots the pain pills lying in wait on the table, just as a tear of inarguable hunger rips through his gut, so fierce and demanding it's almost painful. The sandwich is still there, but now with a smell that's less than appetizing.

 _Burgers and whiskey exist outside these concrete walls,_ Dean tells himself. His head swims as he swings around, and he has to drop a palm onto the surface of the bedside table to keep his sorry ass off of the floor. The pills rattle against the smooth wood, drawing his bleary gaze downward.

 _Sorry to go against doctor's orders, Sammy._ Dean scoops up the tablets, downs them with the last swallow of now-warm water from the glass his brother left him, and heaves himself fully out of bed.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt Lines included in this chapter:
> 
> This isn't a tired that can be slept away.
> 
> His tone is amazingly indifferent, but it's a plea and a command at the same time.
> 
> He decides on skipping the coffee, a choice he hopes not to come to regret later in the day.


	2. Chapter One

Dean isn't in his room.

Instinct had driven Sam to check in on his big brother upon waking. A strange feeling, though one that was apparently warranted.

Light from the hall floods the empty bedroom, granting Sam just enough of a visual to ramp up his already-present worry. The tangled bedsheets are evidence of restless slumber, and a brief survey of the room drives home the fact that Dean can say whatever he wants, but he isn't really doing _well._ With the exception of the Impala's hidden weapons cache, he's always been somewhat prone to messiness and disorder. But from the day he'd planted his flag in this room, Dean's kept it nothing short of immaculate.

The unmade bed is telling enough, and Sam doesn't need to step fully over the threshold to see that the rest of the room is still in a state of complete disarray, as though Dean hasn't yet rummaged up the energy or motivation for even minimal tidying. A faint sting of gasoline attacks Sam's nostrils, causing him to sniff sharply and tilt his face into his shoulder, away from the box of Styne-tainted clothes and belongings that doesn't seem to have been given so much as a second's thought.

He rolls his neck, forces himself to take a deep, calming breath. He's had almost _too_ many reasons to worry about his brother lately, but that's all passed. They're _past_ all of that. Things are _better_ now, and Sam knows he shouldn't panic, or jump to conclusions. There's no fratricidal demon running rampant inside his big brother, no Mark of Cain twisting and destroying everything that makes Dean DEAN. And as brothers, they're in the best place they've been in years.

He's not Dean's warden, and he's definitely not his babysitter. His brother's a grown man, and a habitual night owl, and Sam can do his best to keep tabs but he can't demand a schedule or itinerary or anything.

Still, he can't prevent the frustrated thought from screaming through his head: _where the HELL are you, Dean?_

Last time he had eyes on his brother, Dean was so run-down he was barely keeping his feet underneath him, and Sam had encouraged him to use this bit of unanticipated downtime to rest. He was badly in need of it, no question – had looked like shit after the scuffle with Castiel, and even after a couple days' sleep, wasn't yet on the way to looking much better. He'd been wrecked by the Mark for a while, worn-down and exhausted, and these particular bruises and breaks are taking their sweet time in healing.

Not that Dean hadn't been offered an out, as far as the pain goes.

Guilt isn't a particularly attractive color on anyone, and Castiel had seemed positively miserable in the wake of Rowena's curse, a feeling he wasn't alone in harboring. Sam hadn't liked the look in his brother's eyes as he drew back from Cas' hand, refusing to allow the angel to reverse the damage his fists had painted across Dean's face.

Dean's looking to trade wounds, to get what he – _wrongly_ – feels he's due. For the things he'd done and the blood he'd spilled under the influence of the Mark of Cain. But Sam will be damned before he lets his big brother fall down the rabbit hole of unnecessary guilt and responsibility, to which he's already lost Dean on more than one occasion over the years.

Dean was not the Mark, and the Mark was not Dean, and Sam's not looking to entertain any sort of debate on the matter.

Besides, if Dean wants to start throwing down reasons to feel ashamed and guilty over past indiscretions, well, Sam's pretty sure he can trump his brother's hand with an apocalypse-sized one of his own.

He resists the urge to flip on the light and explore further, instead forcefully tearing his eyes away from the room and his brother's scattered belongings. Sam bites down on his lower lip and pointedly drops his gaze to the floor – some unimportant, nondescript spot of speckled tile where he's not at any sort of risk of violating Dean's privacy.

But Dean's not the only one who's locked himself away to heal under the veil of solitude, and Sam's rounds aren't yet finished. Once he drags himself from the threshold of his brother's room, he sets a course for where Cas has been holed up the last few days.

They'd set up a spare room for Kevin a couple of years back, but Sam's gotten the angel settled in his old room instead, the first one he'd laid claim to when they initially moved in here, the one he'd switched from after Kevin…

_Go. I'm not gonna stop you._

_I can't trust you. Not the way I thought I could, not the way I should be able to._

_I'm saying, you want to work? Let's work._

_Those are my terms._

In any case, this was the room that reopened fewer wounds when he unlocked the door.

Sam raises his fist to knock on the closed door, when a harsh _bong_ of bone on metal echoes down the empty corridor and alerts him to a presence at the end of the hall.

" _Ow._ Son of a _bitch_."

Clearly, that presence is his big brother.

Sam frowns and drops his hand, turns to follow the noise. "Dean?"

"Mm." Dean looks up, squints as Sam flips on the light. He raises a hand to block his eyes from the burn of the bulb overhead. "Inside voice, Sammy," he croaks.

Sam's appraising gaze darts between his brother's bloodshot eyes and the thick, iron stairwell banister he's clearly just collided with. "Wait, are you – are you going out? Or coming in?"

"What?" Dean asks after a concerning pause, groggily blinking at something over Sam's shoulder.

The whiskey smell slams into Sam and he recoils, gags a bit and answers his own question. "Never mind," he chokes out.

Dean snorts, sways and slaps a palm against the banister to keep his feet. "Busted."

He _looks_ busted. He looks…Sam hisses in sympathy as his eyes scan the lingering bruises coloring his brother's pale face, the gray rings of exhaustion under his eyes, the unnatural puff of swelling along the cracked cheekbone.

"Yeah." Sam rolls his eyes, reaches out to grab his brother's sleeve. He can be annoyed – possibly even pissed – over his brother's antics later. Right now, he's just happy to know where Dean is, to have him tucked away in the bunker. _Safest place on Earth._ He gives the jerk a mostly gentle tug in the direction of the hallway. "Come on, man."

Dean shrugs his shoulder in an attempt to shuck Sam's hand, ends up stumbling face-first into the tiled wall with a _smack_. He groans and stays there, plastered against the tiles like a bug on a windshield.

"Dean, it's – " Sam looks at his watch, raises his eyebrows. _Christ_. "It's eight AM. Are you still drunk?"

Dean chuckles, pushes away from the wall and bounces into Sam's side. "Kinda seems that way, don't it?"

Sam sighs and resumes herding his lumbering, uncoordinated brother down the narrow corridor. "Yeah, it kind of does." A thought strikes him and pauses, tightens his grip on Dean's jacket sleeve. "Did you drive?"

"Mm. Drove there. Walked back. Gettin' REAL good at this walkin' thing, Sammy." He lays a sloppy, heavy hand on Sam's shoulder.

"You – you left the Impala outside the bar?"

Dean wrinkles his nose. "Yeah, that doesn't sound like me, does it?"

Sam clenches his jaw, jerks his chin. "No, it really doesn't." _None_ of this sounds like Dean, who's just come out from under the control of the Mark of Cain, who's just now reestablishing a foothold. That's not something Sam thought his brother would be so quick to give up. "Come on."

Dean stops just short of his room, groans a truly miserable sound and tips sideways until his shoulder bumps the wall next to the door.

Sam turns the knob with a _click_ and pivots with as innocent an expression as he can muster. "Headache?"

"Shh."

"Seems about right." Sam swings the door open, ushers Dean inside.

He makes a good go of it, but while Dean's upper body rotates against the doorframe, his lower half seems rooted in place. "M'feet aren't workin' so good, Sammy," he mumbles.

Sam gapes dumbly. He's seen his brother truly _drunk_ a handful of times, but nothing like this. He's seen Dean fight through hellacious hangovers before, but this one is sure to take the cake. He takes advantage of this opportunity to really survey his brother's room, eyes dropping instinctively to the spot where he'd left a snack and pain meds for a basically comatose Dean the day before. The sandwich is still there, soggy and limp, but the pills are gone.

_Well, that explains a lot._ The jackass had gone out and gotten drunk on some pretty hefty painkillers and – more than likely – an empty stomach.

Sam shakes his head, precariously straddling that fine line he's come to know so well, wavering between frustration and concern. "Your _brain_ isn't working. What were you thinking?" _Should have locked him in his room. Should've bolted the goddamned door._ He hadn't, because of this whole mutual trust and honesty thing they've got working.

He gets his brother lined up with his bed and lets Dean flop onto his back, jacket, boots and all. Dean bounces once then seems to melt against his beloved memory foam mattress with a wretched groan.

Sam sighs, places his hands on his hips. "You gonna be good here, man? Wanna lay on your side?" Because the last thing he wants to hear is his brother choking on his own vomit.

Dean waves a weak, uncoordinated hand, drops it onto his chest like it weighs a hundred pounds. "M'good. G'way, Sammy."

"Yeah, sure." But before he leaves Sam steps back to the bed to rid his brother of the stiff jacket and heavy boots, in hopes of making him a little more comfortable. He pauses on the threshold, nose guiding his eyes back down to the box of wrinkled, soiled clothing set just inside the door, where he'd left it for his brother days ago.

The smell is what stops him but it's not what brings him shooting a tentative gaze back to where Dean is stretched out and already snoring, not what has him stooping to collect the box. He could live with the smell; it's the _memory._

Blood on his hands, thick and cooled and stubborn, caught in the grout between the tiles and a real _bitch_ to get out.

_Didn't you do this already?_

He did, and he'll keep doing it, keep scrubbing and scouring and washing and rinsing, until the stain of that _thing_ is no longer visible.

His brother doesn't like his things being touched, so Sam tries to tell himself, with everything that they've gone through in the past week, this isn't THAT big a deal, and Dean will understand.

After all, it's just a load of laundry.

************************************************************

Dean blinks himself awake to a gauzy, unpleasant feeling and from a dream he can't really recall. It's a slow, groggy, painful process, and he doesn't remember much of what's happened. Not why he feels like he was plowed over by a cement mixer, and not how he got here, though he'd put his money on his handsy, overly helpful little brother. The room seems unbearably stuffy, pitch-black and tilting dangerously.

_Son of a bitch._

Dean might have just scraped by with a GED, but he's got a master's degree in hangovers, and this one is of the monster variety. His head is pounding mercilessly and his body is sore and stiff all over, limbs bent awkwardly like he's spent the night – _day?_ – thrashing in restless sleep. His legs are tangled up in the sheets, leaving him with a nauseating caught and strangled feeling, but he can barely muster enough energy to _think_ about kicking them free.

He knows he ventured out of the bunker last night, and knows with even fiercer certainty that he didn't make it back to his room on his own. Which means he's going to be subjected to even more nagging when he manages to drag himself out of bed, so he might have to stay in this room forever. But getting up and out is something he's going to have to do to secure a glass of cold water and a handful of aspirin, which he'd pretty much sell his soul for at the moment – and that's not a thought Dean has lightly. He exhausts himself weighing his options, drops his eyelids closed and succumbs momentarily to the spinning room and his hammering head.

Sam's no stranger to manhandling his drunken big brother into bed, and he knows exactly where all of the lines are, how far his care can go before he gets himself hit. So Dean's jacket and boots are gone, but he's otherwise fully clothed, his traditional layers exacerbating the stuffy, strangled feeling.

Dean rolls his head against his seemingly rock-hard pillow and stares at the bedside table, blinking heavily until his vision clears. The painkillers Sam had left him are gone, which could explain the gaping black hole currently occupying the space between his temples. _Smart move, dumbass._

In as fluid a motion as he can manage, Dean holds his breath and swings his legs from under the covers and over the edge of the mattress, feeling each and every one of those bruises he'd been looking to forget as he shoves up to his feet.

Which is a giant, massive, FUBAR kind of mistake. Because lying still was one thing, but standing upright is proving to be something else entirely, and there's a moment of encroaching black spots and searing pain as Dean's head can't seem to decide if it's up to the challenge.

He's had headaches before, and often – a nearly constant throb of stress and tiredness tugging at his temples that kind of comes with their lifestyle. But this…this is no headache, and no mere hangover. This is brand-new fucking territory.

The pain is exquisite, seemingly rooted in the tight muscles occupying the space between his shoulder blades and branching up through his neck to wrap around his jaw, travel through his injured cheekbone and _stab_ through his left temple. Dean finds himself sinking heavily back to the mattress and longing for a swift return to unconsciousness, but he's one unlucky son of a bitch. This pain in his head seems relentless in its brutal attack. His _eyes_ hurt.

And that's not even yet bringing into account his suddenly churning gut.

Dean gingerly drags himself upright once more and doubles over, groaning. He braces a hand on the rumpled covers of his bed, wills the room to stop spinning. The room basically tells him to go fuck himself, takes a harsh rotation that nearly sends him face-planting into the mattress.

He clamps his jaw shut, lips pressed tightly together, and struggles to remind his queasy gut that while he might have hit the bottle a little hard last night, he's no lightweight like Sammy, and he's not gonna puke.

He's NOT.

Except – yeah, he really is.

**************************************************************

It's nearly dinnertime, and Sam's just passing through the library on the way to the laundry room when Dean staggers into the large, brightly lit space like a foal just learning to stand, like he doesn't have a damn clue what his legs are for.

Sam inhales sharply. _Jesus._ His brother looks like death warmed over in a gas station microwave. He'd looked like shit to begin with, but that'd been a good ten hours ago, and…just… _damn._

Dean's stumbling pretty seriously, is glassy-eyed and chalk-white and still dressed in the clothes Sam had dropped him into his room wearing, which were already the same clothes he'd had on the day before. He trips mid-step and collides into one of the wide tables with a grunt, folds over the edge and stays there, bracing himself on precariously splayed hands.

"Good morning," Sam greets, somewhat pointedly but trying not to glean too much joy from his brother's hangover.

Clinging to the polished table like it's a lifeline, Dean bows his head and mutters something unintelligible in response.

Sam quirks an eyebrow, jiggles the plastic basket under his arm. "Trying to avoid laundry duty?"

"What?" Dean frowns, shakes his head gingerly. "Christ, Sam. I hardly ever understand what you're saying." He raises his unsteady right hand and presses the heel to his forehead, still leaning heavily against the tabletop on his other palm.

"I just haven't seen you all day." Sam sets the laundry basket aside on the table, suddenly moving from _mildly amused_ to _fairly concerned_ at the severity and persistence of Dean's hangover. His brother's _never_ been hit with a morning-after like this, not with his inhuman alcohol tolerance and professional-grade liver. He cocks his head. "You good?"

"Mm. I'm super." Dean drops his hand, rolls his head to squint up at Sam. "Those're my clothes?"

Sam glances down at the laundry basket. "Uh, yeah. The gas smell might not be bothering you, but I couldn't take it anymore, man."

Dean swallows, pales further at the mention of the odor. "Remember what I said about messin' with stuff? This is what I meant."

Sam cracks a smile, because Dean just sounds tired and pained, not pissed. "Gotcha." He sighs, sends another appraisal over his stiff, clearly hurting brother. "So you went out last night, huh? Shoes and everything?"

Dean huffs, swallows roughly. "Sam? You're my brother, and I love ya and all, but I need you to a, use your inside voice, and b, not be impressed by the fact I put on shoes."

"I'm just saying, being up and about in town is a big step from skulking around the bunker."

Dean drops his aching head fully into his hands. "I'm not skulking," he says, his protest muffled through his fingers. He raises his chin, seems confused. "Did I, uh…did I leave the car somewhere?"

Sam nods, holds up a hand at his brother's suddenly wide, panicked gaze. "Don't worry. I already brought her home for you, safe and sound." Dean grunts in response, and Sam uses his years of experience to translate the sound into something akin to relief and thanks. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I just, uh…had a really weird dream, I think."

"Can't say I'm surprised." Sam snorts. "What the hell were you drinking last night, man? Absinthe?"

"What?" Dean frowns up at him. "What are you talking about?"

"You were totally out of it this morning, Dean. I don't think I've ever seen you like that."

"Huh. I don't really…" He trails off, kneading a hand at the base of his skull and rolling his neck on his shoulders. Standing for as long as he has seems to have taken too much out of him, and Dean drags a chair away from the table with a long, loud scrape that causes him to wince in pain as he tumbles onto the seat.

Sam wrinkles his nose sympathetically. "Headache?"

"Understatement."

The honesty throws him, though he figures he shouldn't expect any less. After all, this is the agreement they'd made, not more than a week ago. To do things differently, and not fall into the same old trap of making the same old mistakes. Not that Sam is doing anything approaching an A+ job holding up his end of the deal.

He hates lying to his brother but at this juncture, there's nothing to be gained from telling Dean about what happened in that hospital. He was infected – WAS – and now he's not. He can't see any point in giving Dean just one more thing he can't do anything about, to weigh on his mind and worry himself sick over when he's already nowhere near the top of his game.

Sam's convinced himself of this, but still, he _knows_ better. Knows that, in the interest of fresh starts and full disclosure, Dean should know. Even so, he has to mentally berate himself for hoping – however fleetingly – that his brother feels like too much shit to properly kick his ass after he tells him.

He taps fingertips on the tabletop. "Hey, Dean?"

And Dean might feel – and look – like beat-up roadkill but he's got good instincts, knows this isn't anything he wants to hear. He plays up the hangover, scowls in the direction of Sam's tapping fingers and drops his head once more into his hands, rubs at his temples and responds with a muffled, purposefully pathetic, "yeah?"

Sam opens his mouth, only to catch sight of something that has his eyebrows drawing together and his jaw snapping shut with such force his teeth clack together. He takes a big step toward Dean, who makes an affronted, choked noise as Sam reaches out to yank down the collar of his t-shirt.

Sam's jaw drops. "What the _hell_ is THAT?"

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Sam turns the knob with a click and pivots with as innocent an expression as he can muster. "Headache?"
> 
> "Your brain isn't working. What were you thinking?"
> 
> ...tries to tell himself, with everything that they've gone through in the past week, this isn't THAT big a deal, and Dean will understand.
> 
> Which is a giant, massive, FUBAR kind of mistake.
> 
> "Trying to avoid laundry duty?"


	3. Chapter Two

"What the hell is _what_ , Sam?" With an expression not dissimilar to that of an irrationally-offended kindergartner, his brother twists his shoulders in an attempt to wrench out of Sam's grip.

But still fumbling through the ugly aftermath of whatever the hell it is he got into last night, Dean's nowhere _near_ the top of his game, and is apparently incapable of anything approaching coherent thought. Or, obviously, balance. He pales and closes his eyes, has to slam a rigid elbow down on the tabletop to keep from toppling completely out of his chair.

Sam ignores the show of discomfort and gapes, convinced his brother is screwing with him and therefore not particularly inclined toward sympathy at the moment. Dean's just fucking with him; he _has_ to be, because there's no way in hell he doesn't know exactly what Sam's talking about. " _This_ ," he grits, tightening his fist in the back of his brother's t-shirt and tugging the collar down to expose more of the markings that caught his eye. _Jesus, man, what did you DO?_

Dean snaps upright and growls a displeased, choked sound as the tee's neckline constricts at his throat, rotates in his chair to swat at Sam's hand in an annoyed, highly uncoordinated manner. "Christ, Sam. My head hurts too damn bad to try to figure out what you're talking about. If you're gonna come at me guns blazing, don't you think I at least deserve to know what the hell I did?" His voice still isn't quite right, low and tight from the strain of speaking on his injured cheekbone and bruised jaw, his words jumbled and smooshed. He curls his lip and jerks away with enough force to tear a rip in the seam of his shirt's collar, and once more nearly overbalances, clamps a white hand against the edge of the table and swallows thickly as he narrows bloodshot eyes up at Sam. "And quit pullin' on me, before I puke on you."

A reflexive, disbelieving bark of quasi-amusement escapes Sam before he can rein it in. _He doesn't know_ , he finally realizes with a start, eyes drifting back down to the tease of what is clearly some sort of massive, nonsensical and _brand-spanking-new_ tattoo spanning the space between his brother's shoulder blades. More evidence of the fresh ink is now visible in the gap created from the split along the seam of Dean's collar.

Sam runs a hand down his face, scrubs at his chin and tries not to sound too pissed. In truth, it takes a fair amount of effort. "Okay, dude, seriously. What the _hell_ did you get into last night?"

"You need to switch to decaf, man," Dean grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't know why you're being such a bitch about a coupla drinks." He once more closes his eyes, leaning on an elbow and palming his obviously aching head. "You're the one who said we should take a break."

"To _relax._ "

"Well, a couple of drinks is how I relax."

Sam snorts, crosses his arms. "Yeah, you look really relaxed."

Dean drops his arm to _thump_ against the tabletop and glares up at him. He looked bad yesterday but, no two ways about it, right now he looks like absolute _shit._ This beast of a hangover has taken out his legs, and is persisting in a way that's no longer the slightest bit amusing. Dean's alcohol tolerance is equal parts biology, practice and necessity, and may very well be the eighth wonder of the world. For him to give away control to the point of doing something like _this_ to himself, he had to have gotten into something harder than whiskey.

The thought of his brother having such a desire is hard enough to swallow, but the thought of him getting blackout drunk and stumbling home with the male equivalent of a tramp stamp is so jarring and so _un-Dean_ , Sam can't actually decide whether he should be concerned or pissed. His internal dials have always been preset to anger, so there's some degree of venom in Sam's tone as he demands, "Are you _kidding_ me, Dean?"

His brother freezes, eyes wide and jaw dropped, and Sam takes the opportunity to yank the jackass's collar enough out of the way to get a better look.

His stomach immediately drops all the way to the floor, because this isn't anything like the meaningless tribal marking inked across the backs of frat boys all over the country. This is… "Dude, take your shirt off."

"What? Sam, you have completely – "

" _Dean_ , just – look, from what I can tell there is some kind of massive tattoo on your back, and at least some of it looks like it's Enochian. So either you got so drunk off your freakin' _ass_ last night that you don't _remember_ that, or we could be in a heap of trouble here, man." Sam pauses, forces himself to take a breath, because getting riled up with only serve to do the same for his brother. "So just shut up, and take your damn shirt off," he orders in a steadier voice.

Dean snorts and reels back, narrows his eyes up at Sam. With a soft _chuff_ of breath, a disbelieving grin slowly spreads across his face, even as his shoulders visibly tense.

Sam offers a quick jerk of his chin, letting his brother know as succinctly as possible that he's not fucking around, and Dean drops his eyes away, ducks his chin and raises a cautious hand to drag fingers across the back of his neck.

He grazes the very top of the tattoo, feels out the textural difference between the ink and his own skin and pulls his hand away like he's laid it against a hot stovetop. Dean goes rigid and slams his chair back, jumping to his feet, seeming instantly sobered. If he was pale before, he's downright ghostly now. "Okay, what the _fuck_ is that?"

Sam swallows and reminds himself to remain calm, raises his hands to ask his brother to do the same. "You tell me, man."

"Tell you _what_ , Sam?"

"Here. Just…" Sam wrests his cell phone from his jeans pocket and holds it up for Dean to see first, because his brother is jumpy at the best of times. "I'll show you, okay? But you gotta let me see it."

It takes a moment before Dean nods tightly, and he reaches back to tug his t-shirt over his head. He hums a high-pitched sound of pain as his arm brushes the wounded side of his face, and slowly, tentatively turns and offers his back to his brother for inspection.

"Holy shit," Sam breathes, rocked back a step and knowing immediately and without any question this isn't anything Dean did to himself, regardless of what or how much he may have had to drink.

The ink stands out dark and ominous amid the whispered white lines of old scars and mottles of still-healing bruises, the tattoo just as large as Sam had assumed. Or maybe as he'd feared. Some sort of strange, inverted triangle with a different, sizeable symbol showcased at each point, and lined with painfully tight and ancient-looking scrawls that are only sporadically familiar to Sam; words in at least a half-dozen languages branded onto his brother. He spots the Enochian character that initially grabbed his attention, and a few more he thinks he might recognize but can't readily translate. At the center of the design, a cluster of runes that aren't like anything he's seen before, but clearly _mean_ something.

Because there's an obvious, and _frightening_ , intent to be inferred from the layout of these symbols.

He JUST got the Mark of Cain off his brother, and now he's faced with this – whatever the hell it is. This tattoo wasn't a bad idea or a mistake, and it wasn't an accident. Someone DID this to Dean. Someone PUT this here. And there's no way that's good.

Clearly unnerved by Sam's reaction, Dean's hand comes up again, but this time stops short of touching. A muscle in his jaw jumps. "What is it?"

"It's, uh…" Sam blinks, fumbles for a response that will offer some reassurance to his brother, who's taken hit after hit after very literal _hit_ lately, and one is eventually bound to be one too many. Instead, he says the worst possible thing. "I don't know."

"Sam?"

"Yeah. Yeah." He raises his cell phone and frames up a shot, snaps a quick photo.

Dean takes a step back from Sam after he accepts the phone, putting himself not only out of his brother's reach, but out of a position he'd consider a vulnerable one. He stares down at the picture, and between the glare from the screen and the bruises on his face, it's difficult to discern his exact expression. "What the hell…"

Sam shakes his head, thinking _what the hell_ is right. Thinking, _what the hell did you get into, man? Or, what the hell got into you?_ Whatever this is, whatever it means – it doesn't seem to have landed on Dean by way of any sort of traditional tattooing needle. He needs another long look to be sure, but it almost seems more like a stamp, faintly raised but lacking any evidence of broken skin, or redness and swelling along the edges. "Dean, what _happened_ last night?"

"Wh – I don't…" Dean sets the cell phone aside on the tabletop and exchanges it for his t-shirt, drags it back over his head, never once looking up at his brother. "Cabin fever, man. I just went out for a couple drinks. That's it."

"A couple?" Sam asks incredulously, grabbing up his phone and studying the picture he'd taken. _Jesus._

"Don't be an asshole, Sam."

"I'm just saying, Dean – how much do you need to put away before you don't realize THIS is happening?" Sam worries his lip, rubs at his forehead. He sighs and gestures with the hand gripping his cell phone. "How do you feel?"

Dean cocks his head, glares. There are deep lines of pain etched into the corners of his eyes and he can't seem to stop fidgeting, clearly sore and uncomfortable in his own tainted skin. "I feel like I've got the hangover from hell and you won't stop asking me questions."

Sam rolls his eyes and lets another one fly. "Does it…I dunno, does it burn or itch or anything like that?"

"What? No." Even so, the thought brings Dean scratching at the back of his left shoulder. "It doesn't feel like…I can't feel a goddamn thing, Sam. I didn't even know it was _there_." He visibly shudders from the admission.

"Does it feel like it's, I don't know, doing anything to you?"

"What the hell could it _possibly_ be doing to me?"

"Let's not find out, okay?" Sam runs his hands through his hair, tears his eyes away from his brother. He needs help. "I'm gonna get Cas."

"No, Sam, don't. Just – " Dean sucks in a long, noisy breath, then winces and presses the heel of his hand to the bloom of bruises along his jawline. "We don't even know what this is, or if it even is anything. The guy is a wreck, okay?"

_So are you_ , Sam supplements. And of course this is something. Of _course_ it is. He was so damn _happy_ for the both of them to rid of the Mark, he let his guard down.

_Let's just…take a break, man. Things are quiet. Embrace it._

Sam brought this on, himself. Tempted fate and left his brother as exposed and vulnerable as a sitting duck.

He narrows his eyes, jerks his head. "No. We're not just gonna sit here on our asses and play the 'Wait and See' game." He jabs a finger at the floor. "Whatever this is, there's no way it's good, and it's coming off. Now. Dean, this is exactly why we keep an angel on the payroll."

"This isn't _exactly_ anything, Sam," Dean argues with narrowed eyes, finally forcing some volume behind his words.

He's done a pretty good job of hiding it until now, but alarm and fear flash in Dean's eyes and for a moment, Sam worries his brother is going to lose it, is going to call upon the remembered fierceness and ferality of the Mark of Cain. It was for the better part of a year and a half that _thing_ was pulling and tugging and manipulating everything inside of him, and the fact that it's physically gone isn't necessarily a reassurance there won't be any lasting effects. Aside from the sheer weight of obvious exhaustion that's been dragging at Dean's heels since the damn thing came off. It's dragging at him now, exacerbated by the stress of the situation and bringing him slumping against the table on a palm with a sweaty, gray face.

Despite his better judgement, Sam finds himself searching the library for a drink, something to calm Dean at least enough to feel comfortable with leaving him in the room alone for the amount of time it'll take to fetch the angel for a second – and, god-willing, expert – opinion. _Hair of the dog, right?_

He finds a half-shot bottle of whiskey easily enough, on a bookcase next to a pair of squat, well-used glasses. Pours one for Dean and resists the urge to top off a second for himself. He caps the bottle and brings the drink to his brother, sets it onto the table next to Dean's splayed, white hand with a _thunk._ "Here. Drink," he orders.

Dean nods, jaw clenched and breathing audibly through pain or panic or whatever might lie between. "Yeah," he says, the word tight and strangled. He shifts his hand to grasp the base of the glass, but doesn't lift it.

Sam's eyes narrows, and he lays a hand against his brother's shoulder, finds Dean's muscles tight and tense. "Y'all right, man?" An utterly asinine, though not unwarranted query.

Another nod, a single dip of Dean's chin that is anything but reassuring, and does well to spur Sam into action.

"Okay. I'm gonna get Cas." Still, he pauses, not wanting to let go of his brother just yet. He thumps Dean lightly on the shoulder. "I'll be right back."

Sam doesn't even make it to the steps before a succession of worrying _thumps_ and _smacks_ draws his attention back to the spot where he's just left his brother, only to find Dean no longer standing at the table but curled on the floor next to an overturned chair, clutching his head and gasping in pain.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Sam is pretty sure his brother is screwing with him.
> 
> He doesn't know, Sam realizes with a start.
> 
> "You need to switch to decaf, man."


	4. Chapter Three

He can _hear_ Sam; can hear his brother's voice and recognize his words and interpret well-enough the worry there. But he feels…disconnected, and sore as hell, and can't seem to work up the strength to respond. Not through the relentless attack of his hot-feeling, pounding skull; a headache that's been raging since Dean first woke. A new, and different sort of pain that _definitely_ dug its heels in when his fingertips grazed the… _whatever_ the hell is on his back, and is really starting to gain some traction now.

Christ, he can't even _think_ straight, let alone try to fill in the gaping black hole of last night.

A shadow falls over Dean as Sam leans in close and puts a glass in his hand. "Here. Drink."

His tortured gut churns at the thought, but he manages a hoarse, choked "Yeah" and orders his trembling fingers to fold around the glass, but doesn't move to lift it. Doesn't know that he _can_ lift it. Dean tries to focus his aching eyes on the amber liquid but his vision is fuzzing and strobing in a disconcerting though not entirely unfamiliar way, and an ominous black looms on the edges, creeping closer. He clenches his jaw, temples thrumming and pulsing, and his hand spasms against the polished tabletop.

_Sam._

But he can't form the word, unable to force a second pathetic sound to squeak out from between his lips.

An intense flash of heat tears suddenly and mercilessly through Dean's head, letting the black come rushing in and stealing any semblance of thought or will or even breath. Damn near cracking his skull in two, from the feel of things. His balance is GONE, knees taken out from under him without warning.

Legs buckling, feet sliding, Dean's hand slips from the glass to slap ineffectually at the tabletop as he falls in a blind, uncontrolled drop. His forehead smacks against the edge of the wood with a _crack_ that leaves his ears ringing, and the impact against the concrete floor is a jarring one that sets his vision blurring and strobing once more. And then with a _pop_ , he altogether loses sight of the library.

_Fingers fiddle nervously with the buttons of a suit jacket of freshly pressed blue wool._

_A door closes, thick, polished cherry wood._

_Two hands clasp in greeting, an enthusiastic shake._

Images pass through Dean's mind like a train bulleting past, but nothing he recognizes or can begin to make sense of, and there's some kind of strange background noise, like a humming electric current he can feel in his teeth. And voices; two men, but thick and warbled and underwater-sounding.

_Sam? Cas?_

" – ean!"

That's his brother's voice for sure, but those hands are what drag Dean back to the surface. Sam's hands, massive and demanding and _always_ invading his personal space, landing like ten-pound weights on his shoulders and chest and head.

_Son of a – not the HEAD, you fuckin' sadist._

"Dean!" Sam's suddenly got him by the sides of the face, thumbs pressing against his bruised jaw and thrumming temples and it hurts. "Hey, Dean. You with me?"

His brother's voice is clearer now, the ringing in his head receding. Dean swallows and reaches up to grab Sam's wrist with his own shaky and inexplicably slick hand, orders thickly, "Geddoff."

"Yeah, sure thing. Just do me a favor and open your eyes first."

_They're not already?_ That's news to Dean. He screws up his nose, struggling to form a solid, coherent thought. _Then what the hell did I just…_

He pushes past the pain in his head and sucks in a deep breath that tugs traitorously at each and every one of those slow-healing bruises, drags his anvil-heavy eyelids open to blink sluggishly at the tilting room.

The library comes back to clarity in stages. Lights flaring and buzzing on his periphery, a faint whisper of cool air through the vents overhead, sharp angles of iron and brick and stone. Castiel, looming with dropped shoulders and a furrowed brow at the end of the table. A faint _plip_ of spilled whiskey slipping to the concrete and pooling beneath his arm. And finally, his brother, RIGHT THERE, with eyes blown wide in uninhibited concern.

Dean sort of wishes Sam would put a lid on this whole overzealous mother-hen act, because it seems counterproductive, and besides, he just got a little dizzy. Yeah. Just got a headache. A BITCH of one, but just a headache. Been sleeping for _shit_ and can't remember the last time he ate, and all that whiskey last night maybe wasn't one of his better of ideas, especially not when he downed those pain pills before setting off for the bar.

That's all. There's no need for the lifelong worrywart to make any kind of THING out of this. But in the aftermath of the Mark of Cain, and of the demon, and every damn thing that happened between, Sammy's recalibrated his threshold for concern. Which was already a bit low for his big brother's liking.

Dean pushes up from the whiskey-slicked floor and braces himself on his elbows, feeling genuinely pained and confused. He shakes his head weakly. "Sammy, I don't…" He locks it down, closes his eyes against the unrelenting onslaught of a too-bright room, and it only takes a few more seconds before Dean decides he's got better than even odds that he won't puke all over one or both of them. "Okay," he says thickly, forcing his heavy eyelids to reopen and meeting his brother's gaze. "Now get off."

Sam drops his hands but stays close, bounces on his heels. He smiles tightly, looking thin and tired and stressed. Older than he should; older than Dean would like. "You good?"

Dean raises his eyebrows, squints through the persistent pound at the base of his skull and the sharp, fresh ache from the strike to his forehead. He once more swallows back the urge to hurl all over his brother's face. "Fantastic." But he can feel his own rapid pulse still twanging in his temples, in his tired eyes, in his busted, swollen cheek. His legs seem Jello-y, slippery and useless, and he thinks vaguely that he may have to live in the library now, right here on the floor.

But Sam's one step ahead of him, already has that covered and Dean under the arms, hauling him back to his feet and being mostly gentle about it.

Dean's horribly roaring head declares with a screaming _claxon_ of agony that it does not approve whatsoever with the elevation change, and he communicates as much to his brother with a pitiful groan he's unable to hold back, forced again to squeeze his eyes shut as all of the lighting fixtures in the library seem to flare to life.

This isn't Sam's first rodeo and he gets the message easily enough, immediately pushes Dean down into the chair he's righted. He grips the arms and leans in, gets right in his brother's face while Dean is still _choo-chooing_ steadying breaths and digging deep for usable space to pocket the pain away inside.

Feeling horribly suffocated, Dean swings out weakly with his right arm and would face-plant right back onto the concrete if not for his hovering little brother.

"Yeah, you might just wanna sit tight for a bit," Sam warns, hands instinctively coming out to steady him. He ducks his head, narrows his eyes at what is no doubt a knot the size of a fucking _guinea pig_ forming on Dean's forehead. "What the hell just happened, man?"

Dean presses the heel of his hand to his still-ringing skull. "Head rush?" he offers, half-assed, to buy some time to fucking _think._ Because Sam's question isn't without merit.

Castiel hovers silently but noticeably out of frame, having been summoned by the commotion or by Sam's unnecessary worry. The angel fidgets and shifts his weight, unsure of what he should be doing in the moment. _Always_ unsure of what he should be doing in the moment.

"Head rush?" Sam repeats incredulously.

Dean drops his hand away to _thump_ against the tabletop and levels a glare up at his brother, though he can't really fault the kid for his doubt, seeing as how he's doing little more than throwing excuses at a dartboard in hopes of something sticking. "Yeah, Sam. Head rush. I'm more than a little hungover here – do I need to spell it out for you?"" It's probably not in his best interest to mention the pills – not only a likely explanation for his still-roiling gut, but also the odd, random images that flashed through his head. A moot point, really, because he's nowhere near lucky enough for Sam to have forgotten that detail.

But a hangover, even a BAD one doubled-down with a generous serving of decent pain meds and a brand-new crack to the head, isn't the only problem on Dean's plate at the moment. He's not going to start drawing lines and making assumptions, not yet, not when he can't _think_ and he's got Sam and Cas staring at him like he's some kind of charity case. On the bright side, at least, with the garage band rehearsal currently happening in his head, his face barely hurts anymore.

Sam's jaw twitches like it does whenever he's preparing himself to say something he knows Dean doesn't want to hear, but instead of launching into some after-school special-esque lecture, he tilts his head, narrowing his eyes at that Superdome-sized lump on Dean's forehead. "Looks like you clipped the table pretty good."

"I'm FINE." He answers automatically, not taking proper internal stock.

Sam rolls his eyes and reaches out to right the tipped glass on the table, and doesn't seem in any hurry to let Dean off the hook. "Seriously, dude. What the hell was that?"

Dean resists the urge to fidget in his chair and manages steady-enough eye contact with twin sets of concerned gazes, lifts a shoulder with tight, practiced nonchalance. Like he's done a hundred times. "Got dizzy," he probably-not-lies. "Hangover, blood sugar…it's a whole thing. Really, I'm fine." _Really._

His brother stares back, waiting for Dean to blink, but he won't. He nods, a tight, narrow-eyed motion that means he doesn't believe a single goddamn thing his brother is saying, but doesn't see any point in furthering the argument. Dean's trained the kid well.

Sam straightens, pushes a hand through his hair and sighs. He drops his hands onto his hips and shoots a glance between his brother and Cas. "Onto the next problem in the line, then, I guess."

And at that, Dean can't help but wriggle in his seat.

**************************************************************

Dean squirms, an understated motion of discomfort he probably thinks his brother won't catch, but Sam does.

He _always_ does.

He's watched Dean go through too much, and _hide_ too much, not to know better. Sam's learned to keep an eye out for the subtle things, because that's how his big brother reveals pain, and alarm, and fear. It's only in his concern for his family that his expressions and actions leave his emotions transparent and obvious.

Looking vaguely sick, Dean is horribly white and drawn, the rising bruise above his brow standing out dark and ghastly. His pain is unspoken but evident in his bright eyes and tense posture. He finally folds under Sam's scrutinizing stare, scrubs gingerly at his forehead and rotates in his chair to drop his gaze to the tabletop.

The motion leaves Sam with another glimpse of the uppermost portion of that mysterious tattoo marring Dean's back, and he takes the opportunity to step forward and tug gently at the collar of his brother's shirt. "Cas, come take a look at this."

The mere thought of being put on display seems to reinvigorate Dean. He jerks upright and shoves his chair back, wordlessly wrenching out of Sam's grasp and, if such a thing is possible, paling even further.

"He needs to see it, Dean," Sam insists.

"Use the picture," Dean grits in return, dropping a palm flat against the tabletop and looking pretty damn disgusted with himself for needing the support.

Sam rolls his eyes but locates his cell phone, discarded on a low bookshelf when he heard his brother hit the floor. He pulls up the picture and hands the phone off to Cas, watches as the angel visibly tenses at the image.

At first, he thinks Castiel's unease is in understandable reaction to the cryptic tattoo. But as Cas shoots a quick, guilty glance at Dean, Sam realizes it's due more to the hints of remaining bruises along his brother's ribcage that were inadvertently captured in the shot.

He clears his throat and points to the phone's screen, drawing Cas' attention back to the design of the tattoo. "Do you recognize these symbols? I thought this one might be Enochian, but I can't translate it."

"It's rare, hasn't been used in…eons." The angel's eyes narrow, and Sam pretends that his brother's relief that Cas at least recognizes the text isn't painfully obvious. "It means…well, the only translation I can think of that you'll understand is 'reveal.'"

"What about the rest?" Sam prods, feeling hopeful and encouraged. "Do you recognize the language?"

Castiel studies the picture, then nods slowly. Carefully, and not making direct eye contact with either Winchester. "I do," he says, "but it appears to have been coded or altered in some way."

"Can you translate it?"

Another excruciatingly silent moment passes before Cas raises his eyes and nods once more. "It'll take some time."

"That's okay." Sam forces a reassuring smile through his frustration and disappointment, turns it on his brother. "We'll figure this out."

Dean rolls his eyes, trying to seem annoyed, maybe even inconvenienced by what's happened to him, and not worried. Scared. Violated. He looks drawn, exhausted, and in a fair amount of pain that he won't dare specify or disclose to the others, especially not the still-healing Castiel.

Sam shoves his cell phone back into his pocket and sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck, his fingers drawn to the spot by a phantom, sympathetic ache. "Cas, you said the symbol meant 'reveal'? Reveal what?"

Dean steps forward suddenly. "Who gives a shit? It doesn't matter – _none_ of this matters." He raises his eyebrows throws a hand in Castiel's direction, and it's horribly clear that his body doesn't appreciate the abrupt movement or his moving away from the table. He doubles down on the strength in his voice to make up for the clear tremble in his limbs. "Look, Cas, just burn the damn thing off."

Castiel shrinks back, seemingly swallowed by his coat, and doesn't respond.

"You can do that, right?" Dean ducks his head, keeps his eyes directed pointedly away from his brother. "I mean, you've done it before."

Cas sighs. "Yes, but I wasn't…"

"Weren't what?" Dean persists. "Cas, you are not weak."

Castiel squares his shoulders and offers them a small, sad smile. He looks down at his own hand, making a slow, tight fist and then flexing his fingers, and seems sickened by himself.

"Cas," Dean barks, glassy-eyed, impatient and twitchy with pain. He moves backward until he bumps into the table, leans heavily against the polished wood. "Rein it in, man. You can do this. I trust you."

Sam knows his brother well enough not to believe for a second that Dean's unwillingness to allow Castiel to heal his previous injuries had anything to do with doubt in the angel's abilities. It's a self-imposed penance for what he feels he _deserves._

Even so, that's not nothing, not coming from Dean. Not at this particular time.

Castiel's expression softens and he nods, with the most confidence he's shown since rushing worriedly into the library.

Dean returns the motion and spins slowly against the table, bows his head and grips the edge with both hands as Cas moves to stand behind him. The arrangement noticeably puts his brother on edge, trust or no. You learn pretty quickly to stay in Dean Winchester's line of sight.

The angel extends his hand, but pauses before he gets too close. "This shouldn't hurt," he says, cautiously eyeing what's left of the contusions coloring Dean's face and no doubt thinking of what he can't see, wary of further harming his friend.

Dean raises his head and rolls his eyes, but there's no real annoyance in the motion. He just seems to not know what else to do.

Castiel's expression hardens as he gathers his grace and channels the power down to his outstretched fingertips, hovering just above Dean's back and the markings there, most of which remain unseen beneath the thin cover of his t-shirt.

A familiar, bluish glow fills the space between Castiel's palm and Dean's back, and the visible hints of ink brighten, a hot-looking flare of WHITE that Sam finds difficult to keep eye contact with.

Sweat breaks out at Dean's hairline, but for a too-long moment, nothing seems to happen. Then his brother squirms and wrinkles his nose in obvious discomfort.

Sam frowns, uncrosses his arms. "Dean?"

Dean swallows, leans forward over the edge of the table, away from Cas, and looks very much like he's attempting to escape an intense pain.

Sam's understandably had a whopper of a bad feeling since he first stumbled upon Dean stumbling into the stairwell banister, and this pained look rapidly overtaking his already-wounded brother's features only serves to ratchet up his unease. He raises a hand, pats nervously at the air between them. "Cas, maybe you should – "

That's all the warning Sam manages before the building glow between Castiel and Dean intensifies to such a point he has no option but to turn away. With an audible buzz and a supernova burst of light, the angel is thrown away from his brother, and Dean is slammed against the edge of the table.

Cas connects with an _oof_ and a painful-sounding _crack_ against a solid bookshelf across the library, and crumbles. He falls forward onto his palms, head dropped and arms visibly shaking.

Instinct propels Sam to move to the angel's aid. He crouches and places a supportive hand on Castiel's shoulder before raising his eyes to check on his brother.

"Well," Dean gasps, straightening gingerly from where he'd been folded over the table and shaking almost as noticeably as Castiel. "That sucked."

Cas tenses and, face set, grips Sam's arm, uses the support to find his feet. "Something's wrong," he states needlessly, voice sandpaper-rough.

"No kidding," Dean grits, raising an unsteady hand to press against his middle before moving it to grip the back of his neck.

Cas drops his gaze to his own hand. "This…mark – "

_Pick another word, Cas,_ Sam thinks, wincing.

" – it's warded against my abilities."

Sam meets his brother's gaze, and it's not quite _panic_ painted across Dean's features – not yet. _Escape and evade,_ though, is a command – a DESIRE – screaming from his bright, wide eyes.

He's so experienced and schooled in this look of Dean's, he can almost predict to the _second_ when his brother will push away from the table and make for the nearest exit. "Okay," Sam says, loudly and drawing Dean's attention, and keeping him _here,_ physically and – perhaps more importantly - mentally. "But what does that mean?"

"It means whoever did this went to great lengths to ensure it won't be easily removed."

Dean straightens, looking gray and lined. He holds out a hand. "Gimme a knife. I'll remove the damn thing myself."

He's not kidding, and the sense of déjà vu that falls over Sam is so immediately stifling, he feels light-headed and nauseous. Desperate. "Dean, man," he says, bringing up a hand once more. "Calm down a second."

"Calm down?" Dean repeats incredulously, forcing _pissed_ to cover _scared._ "Sam, how the hell can you be telling me to _calm down?_ " He raises a shaking hand to hover in the space between his chin and shoulder. "There's this… _thing_ on me, and we don't know what it means or where it came from."

"You're right," Sam concedes. "Okay? You're right. We're gonna figure this out." He's not exactly sure who he's trying to convince, Dean or himself.

"How?"

"What would we do if this was any other case?" Sam keeps a straight face but internally he's _cringing._ This isn't any _other case_ ; this is DEAN. This is his _big brother_. But he needs to find a way to distance himself from indulging his visceral emotional reactions to seeing Dean in trouble _once again_ , or it could leave the BOTH of them vulnerable to something even worse.

Dean drags a hand down his face, plants the other on his hip. "We'd interview the witness, but, Sam, seriously…I've got _nothin'_ , man." His eyes are wide, frightened by the admission.

"Okay, so what's next?"

"Retrace my steps," Dean obliges dully. He scrubs both his hands over his face then turns without warning, starts walking out of the library.

"Wait, wait, wait." Sam frowns, brings up his hands as he slides easily between his slow-moving brother and his escape. "Where're you going?"

Dean quirks an eyebrow, sniffs dramatically. "Well, I was thinkin' I'd take a shower, Mom."

"You think that's just gonna _wash_ off? Dean, Cas just – "

"Sam, I just need—" Dean cuts himself off, blows out a pained breath as he steps around his brother.

"Dean – "

"I'm FINE, Sam." But he refuses to turn back, won't give Sam that gray, wounded countenance to weigh against his words. "Just give me ten damn minutes."

Sam studies his brother as he watches Dean disappear through the doorway. He wants to follow, to make sure the man is okay – or, as okay as he could possibly be expected to be under the current circumstances – but knows any attempt will is likely to be met with a violent burst of anger. Not necessarily aimed at Sam, but directed at him, all the same.

Cas steps up next to him, his weakness a tangible thing, filling the space between them. "You don't believe him."

Sam bites his lip, gives a quick shake of his head. "As a general rule, no."

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Dean pushes up from the ground and braces himself on his elbows, looking genuinely pained and confused, and even paler than before. Ghostlike. He shakes his head weakly. "Sammy, I don't..."
> 
> "Yeah, you might just wanna sit tight for a bit," Sam warns, hands instinctively coming out to steady him.
> 
> Sam's not sure exactly sure who he's trying to convince, Dean or himself.


	5. Chapter Four

The bunker is a chilly, sizable space that tends to feel like a fucking _labyrinth_ when Dean's had a few whiskeys or taken a few hits, but his room has never seemed farther from the library than it does at this particular moment.

Granted, he's not exactly moving at peak speed here, slow-moving feet making soft, echoing _scuffs_ as he trudges along the otherwise empty and seemingly endless hallway. Slow-moving for a multitude of reasons, individual annoyances and pains piling on and weighing down his steps.

It's not just the yawning ache in his _incredibly_ empty stomach or this bitch of a headache; a miserable, utterly _relentless_ thrum attacking the base of his skull. It's not just the lingering twinge in his bruised ribs and face, or the fresher sting in his back, which is an amusement park of _ow_ in the wake of Cas's failed attempt to remove these markings. It's frustration with himself, and confusion, and a gaping black hole in his memory – a sensation that makes his skin crawl. It's an unknown, unidentified threat that's _out there_ somewhere.

It all amounts to a very specific sort of unease Dean can't deny, not to himself in an empty corridor.

He can't ever acknowledge this feeling, not out loud, and especially not to his little brother. Not after…it's important for Dean to keep his game face on, to maintain his identity of _big brother_ , a mantle he's spent a _lifetime_ fighting to embody, but certainly hasn't done his best to uphold of late.

Now that he's alone, there's just no denying his worry. His _fear_. With everything he and Sam have been through the past year and a half – most of which was, admittedly, Dean's own doing – he's damn well allowed to be scared. It's not weakness; it's _smart_. It's _knowing better._

Dean shifts his throbbing shoulders and inadvertently knocks himself off-balance. He stumbles sideways into the wall, feeling suddenly flushed and nauseated, and just flat-out _wrong_. This tattoo, or whatever it is…the warding against Cas is a bad sign. A _really_ bad sign. Any other effects – whether to himself or others – are yet to be seen, but he knows better than to believe they aren't coming. And he knows better than to believe they won't be _bad._

But he can't afford to be scared, no more now than he's ever been able to. As always, he has to push past _scared_ , find _pissed_. Even if it's just with himself, for stooping to this level of self-indulgent wallowing, for letting his guard down to the point someone or some _thing_ got this particular drop on him.

Because _pissed_ is effective. _Pissed_ works, gets the job done. Some of Dean's deepest bruises have come courtesy of _pissed._

_It means you're a monster._

Not his finest of moments, but _miles_ ahead of his more recent decision-making train wrecks. The ones he can fucking _remember_ , anyway.

At least when Dean agreed to take on the Mark of Cain, it was a choice he made with fair – however vague – warning that the endgame wasn't going to be sunshine and roses.

_You have to know, with the Mark comes a terrible burden. Some would call it a great cost._

He'd have definitely appreciated a bit more from Cain, in the way of specifics. Something along the lines of, _there ain't enough whiskey in the world to calm the fire tearing you apart from the inside._ Or, _the only time you'll feel WHOLE is when you're spilling blood, when you're sinking that goddamned Blade into flesh and bone._

Something like, _you do this, and you can kiss your humanity goodbye. Especially if you manage to fuck up so badly you get yourself killed._

Missed the boat on that one, though, didn't he?

_Yeah, well, spare me the warning label._

This thing that's inexplicably _on him_ …it sure as hell hasn't come with any warning label, discounting the angel-warding; a red flag if ever there was.

They're flying as good as blind here. And Dean can't conjure up a single damn memory to point them in the right direction.

His sluggish feet finally give up on him altogether, get tangled up on the threshold of his room and he falls against the doorframe with a hollow _smack_ he's sure is loud enough to bring his little brother hauling ass down the hall after him.

He won't, because Sam's been pretty good about this _space_ thing. But he's still Sam, and that means that he'll be the one to ultimately decide for the both of them when enough's enough, and Dean better get a move on if he's gonna get that shower he desperately needs. The clock's running; an ominous feeling he's grown quite familiar with over the years.

He stands under a near-abusively hot spray for much longer than he should, as though the steaming water might scour these strange markings from his skin. Nothing's ever that easy, but the shower _is_ proving effective in loosening the tight, tense muscles of his back and shoulders. The heat also makes a move on Dean's exhaustion and weakness, numbs a bit of the pain and leaves him drowsy to the point he has to slam a hasty palm against the slick tile to keep from taking a header that would leave him in one hell of an embarrassing predicament.

It's by no means a quick shower, but he hasn't heard the bell ring yet. The hallway remains empty; Dean doesn't pass his brother as he pads sore and loose-limbed back to his room. He dresses carefully, gingerly, as even the simple motion of pulling a clean t-shirt over his head draws a curse and a wince.

He's scuffing a hand through his damp hair when there's – finally – a hesitant knock on the door. Sam, here, but respecting and granting space, not barging in the way Dean would if their positions were reversed.

A muffled inquiry follows the knock. "You okay, man?"

Dean opens the door wide and skips an answer, just grabs up jacket and keys and jerks his chin. "Let's go." He wants to get this over with, would really rather not have his little brother at his side as his dirty laundry is aired, as he works through the inevitable humiliation of piecing together the truckload of shit dumped on him last night. Doesn't want Sammy to be hearing unseemly things at the same time _he's_ hearing them for the first time.

Sam's eyes narrow but he doesn't press the issue. Not yet.

Back in the library, Cas is standing by, but barely; slumped forward on his palms on one of the tables, arms obviously trembling and looking just as miserable as Dean feels. Maybe more.

He straightens a bit as they enter, rotates his head to face them and his face visibly pales. The apparent angel warding of this tattoo has left Dean aching and uncomfortable, but it seems to have set Castiel's healing back by _days_. He looks worse than he did after Rowena's curse – weak, and gray. He lifts a hand from the tabletop and without the support, wavers.

So, _definitely_ more miserable than Dean feels, because at least he's independently mobile.

Dean steps forward, raises a hand and forces a world of strength behind his words, tries to make it sound like an order. "Okay, that's it, Cas. You're tagging out."

The angel shakes his head, defiant. "I want – I need to help."

Dean recognizes the look in his friend's wounded eyes, a desperate desire to FIX SOMETHING in the wake of nearly breaking everything. He's seen it in his own in the mirror, a dozen times over. "You can help here. Work on the translation." He makes a fist to keep from picking at the suddenly itching, aching spot between his shoulder blades.

It's a true statement, how easily Castiel gives in. He nods his assent, a simple, weak bob of his head. His eyes move to Sam. "You'll call, if…anything changes."

"Of course," Sam says, gazes pointedly directed away from Dean, who _really_ doesn't appreciate being talked about like he isn't standing between them. "You, too."

"Of course."

Dean squirms, turns the motion into an impatient stamp of his foot and rubs his palm against his chin. "We good now? Can we go?"

They're barely out of Cas' eyeshot when Sam plants a hand on Dean's chest, stops him mid-step and pins him carefully against the wall. So apparently, it's go-time. His brother's eyes are bright, wide with concern and questions. "Seriously, man…you good?"

_You gonna fall on your face in the street?_

_You gonna snap and freak out on me?_

It makes Dean wonder what exactly it is his brother is reading in _his_ eyes. He clenches his jaw, nods. "Great."

Sam's not satisfied. Never really is. "You don't get like this over nothing, Dean."

"I'm not getting like anything, Sam. Can we get on with this?" Dean meets his brother's gaze coolly. He waits for the nod, then spins the key ring in his hand. "Awesome."

*******************************************************************

He's pretty sure they take the turn into the bar on two wheels, and though a glance at the speedometer gives him a flash of fear for his life, Sam isn't going to tell his brother to slow down, not when he has this LOOK. He clings white-knuckled to the doorframe, shakes his head as Dean jerkily throws the Impala into 'park' at the back of the gravel lot, under the watchful eye of an overhead light. "Dude, I still can't believe you _walked_ back from here." _While drunk as shit_ , he adds, though silently.

"Yeah, well, you're always telling me to exercise."

An argument Sam actually gave up for good years ago, but Dean's currently grasping for the nearest available distraction, for anything to keep his mind from obsessing over the reason he can't stop wincing and squirming.

So Sam obliges as he steps out of the Impala, but won't throw Dean a softball. "Just a thought here, but being drunk probably counteracted any positive benefits of this long a walk."

Dean shuts the car door with a dramatic roll of his eyes. "Everyone's a critic."

Sam leans against his own door, looking at his brother appraisingly.

Under the unforgiving spotlight, Dean appears weary and pained, the persistent bruising along his cheek and jawline standing out dark and nasty-looking. He rubs at the back of his neck, dragging ass in a way he'll never verbally cop to.

"You need a nap," Sam observes. _Or a sedative._ He doesn't mean either unkindly.

"No, Sam, what I need is some goddamn answers. What I need is this, this… _thing_ – " Dean visibly shudders. " – the hell off of me." His apparent aggravation is only thinly veiling the pain that lies beneath. One mother of a headache, clearly, that's pressing down on his shoulders, tugging at the corners of his mouth and deepening a crease between his squinted eyes.

Part of Sam wants to tell the jerk that it serves him right, but he can't really look at his brother in any sort of pain and think it's _deserved._

Sam raises his hands. "I hear you, Dean. Baby steps, okay?" He can't believe the words as they're coming out of his mouth, doesn't want these markings to remain on his brother any longer than Dean does. But Winchesters have roughly the same track record with rash decision-making as anyone, if not worse, and they need to go about this the right way. The _smart_ way.

The slow way.

He turns, squints at the small, narrow building, all corrugated metal siding and buzzing neon beer signs, and looking exactly like the kind of place Dean goes to disappear for a few hours. It's relatively early, as far as bar hours go, but this is the sort of establishment that has a _type_ , and a nightly crowd. There's a throng of patrons already partaking inside the dark, cramped space, and the music is loud, twangy and just this side of bearable.

The smell hits Sam next. A cacophony of overwhelming scents in which one or two aren't necessarily unpleasant, but are almost immediately lost in a noxious cloud of body odor, beer, vomit, and a peculiar aroma he can't quite place. It's probably best he doesn't try. _Honestly, Dean._ He grips his brother by the jacket sleeve and drags him in the direction of the bar top, elbowing his way through the crowd. The soles of his shoes suction to the sticky floor which each step.

It's immediately obvious that Dean didn't come out this way for the view; the bartender is husky guy in his mid-twenties, with a bearded face that seems capable of traversing the full spectrum between _what's your problem, hon_ and _get the fuck out of my bar._ Sam guesses his big brother's probably seen something close to the latter on at least one occasion. "Excuse me," he calls, raising his voice over the din and a hand into the man's eye line.

"What can I get you guys? We're out of Copperhead." He taps one of the tall draft handles without really looking up at them.

Dean, who likes his IPAs, lays his forearms against the counter and clucks his tongue, sounded disappointed.

Sam spares him a glance before shaking his head. "I was actually wondering if you maybe recognize my brother here." He leans in, and still has to nearly shout to ensure he's heard. "Would have been about – "

"Last night, yeah. I saw 'im." A quick confirmation, disinterested and busy, but certain.

Sam blinks. "You're sure."

The man nods. "Yeah, I'm sure. No offense, buddy, but, uh…" He raises a hand to his own wide, bearded face before gesturing to the bruises on Dean's. "Sorta hard to miss, ya know?"

Dean grins tightly, that silent _fuck you_ he throws at mouthy assholes right before he lays them out.

"Double whiskey, neat, right?"

"Yeah, that's him," Sam confirms, as the bartender pours a quick drink and slides it across the counter to his brother.

The man turns to Sam, raises his eyebrows. "For you?"

"No, thanks."

Dean salutes with his glass and knocks back the whiskey.

The motion leaves the bartender snorting, resting a fist against the edge of the counter. "Might wanna take it easy, man."

Sam frowns, unaccustomed to such remarks being thrown his brother's direction. "What makes you say that?"

"Not surprised he's havin' trouble remembering, is all. Your brother's one of the biggest lightweights I've ever served."

Sam exchanges a look with Dean, who's certainly not been blessed with an abundance of self-awareness, but knows that's nowhere near right. His tolerance for alcohol is the stuff of legend. "What do you mean?"

"Only had one beer and a coupla whiskeys," the bartender offers between pouring drinks for a couple who presses up next to Sam. "I've seen sorority girls put down more."

Dean's empty glass _thunks_ hollowly on the bar top. There's a split-second in which Sam's not sure whether or not his brother's going to go across the counter at the man, and even less sure he'll be able to hold Dean back if he does. For everyone's safety, he takes a step to the side, putting himself firmly between them. "You remember if he met up with anyone while he was here?" _Demon, angel, mineral, vegetable?_

"Oh, yeah." A sloppy, suggestive smile. "Chatted up some girl for a bit. Bought her a drink, then they left together."

Dean picking up a random girl in a bar isn't anything out of the ordinary. Didn't use to be, anyway. "This girl, what did she look like?"

The man shrugs, rapidly losing interest. "Hot?"

Dean leans an elbow on the counter and smirks, doesn't say anything.

Sam rolls his eyes. "What?"

"Nothin.'"

"Yeah, bring it down a notch, man." Sam takes advantage of a brief lull between songs to address his brother in a low, serious tone. "You don't even remember."

"But I bet she does."

Sam stares at his brother, looking past the lewd grin and into Dean's bright eyes. Eyes betraying the fact he's exhausted and hurting, and Sam realizes the jackass is playing it up because they've been through fucking _hell_ and he's trying to keep his little brother from poking and prodding and asking stupid questions like _are you okay?_

He narrows his gaze, turns back to the counter. "You said you only served him a couple of drinks?"

"That's right. Your boy here can't hold his liquor for shit." He raises his eyebrows at Dean, waves a hand. "No offense, man – "

Sam's starting to get the impression he says this a lot.

" – but I can't even believe you walked out of here with that chick, out of it as you were." He steps away from the counter, filling more drink orders before sidling back. He knocks on the counter. "We good here, fellas?"

"Yeah." Sam nods, frowns. "Just one more thing. About what time was that? When they left?"

Another shrug. "'Round midnight?"

That's – _God_ – nearly eight hours of unaccounted time. Sam recoils, turns to his brother. "I thought you walked home from here?" _Lightweight. Only a coupla of drinks. Out of it._ Sam grabs his brother by the lapel of his jacket and hauls him close. "Dude," he whispers harshly, to cover his rapidly increasing worry. "Did you get freaking _roofied_ again?"

Dean just stares, doesn't argue or deny because he doesn't _know_. After a moment, he brushes Sam's hand from his chest, pulls back a step and scrubs at his face. "This is pointless, Sam." He turns on his heel, stalks toward the door.

Sam can sympathize with his brother's frustration, but it's not. He thinks back on Dean's behavior earlier in the morning, stumbling and slurring and certainly _appearing_ drunk as he'd ever been. This bartender's a stranger, and therefore not probably the most reliable of sources, but he seems certain. Something was clearly _done_ to Dean. By this strange girl? And where the _fuck_ did they go?

Narrowed eyes tracking his brother's slow, weaving egress from the smoky bar, Sam waves the man back over. "Thanks for your help," he mutters, distractedly pushing a wrinkled twenty across the sticky bar top, for the drink and the information.

"You bet."

Dean's already pushing out of the bar by the Sam extricates himself from the thirsty, demanding crowd swarming the counter.

Even in those unfortunate stretches when their relationship was…rocky, they've spent a RIDICULOUS amount of time together over the past few years. Sharing space in the cramped quarters of the Impala or closet-sized motel rooms, and ferreting out alone time can be a challenge. Finding, and moving into, the Men of Letters bunker has helped; each brother now with an entire room for himself, and several thousand square feet at their disposal to cram between them whenever the need for space arises.

They're still together a great deal of the time, and will grab diner food when they're on the road, but don't really go out for meals or drinks when they're operating out of the bunker. Haven't had the occasion to celebrate in…well, too damn long.

Sam can't help but think, if he'd pried at his brother the way Dean's always pried at him when things get bad, if he'd made the overly-secretive son of a bitch talk for once, if he'd said "hey, man, let's go get a beer" instead of letting him brush it all under the rug and skulk back to his room…maybe they wouldn't be in this predicament.

_Hindsight, Sam,_ he think bitterly, laying a palm against the smudgy glass door of the bar and shoving it open. It's when he does his best work. His cell phone trills as he trots out onto the chipped concrete steps, and he moves out of the way of a group of rowdy incoming patrons, presses against the metal railing to dig it out of his pocket and squint down at the screen through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

Sam lifts the phone to his ear, raising his eyes to search the dark lot for his brother. "Cas?" He catches the back of Dean's head moving slowly between the cars.

_"Sam. I believe I –"_

A peal of laughter escapes through the opening door, exploding in Sam's head like a rung gong. He plugs his free ear and steps away from the entrance. "Cas, I can't – hang on a sec." A cacophony of cracking pool cues, deafening rock music and crashing glass follow him out of the glow of a buzzing red neon sign and all the way into the gravel lot. _How does Dean FIND these places?_

Or – _better question_ – WHY?

It's entirely possible Sam hasn't been doing his big brother the favors he thinks he is, allowing Dean to pretend everything him is fine and hunky-dory in the aftermath of the Mark. Not _nearly_ enough time has passed, and now that he's being forced to really think about it, he's not sure there can be a timeline for such a thing. They're nowhere near _normal_ , and Dean's nowhere near _good_ , not if he's sneaking out to spend the night in places like THIS. Sam figures there's a better than even chance he's already contracted something that can't be combatted with hand sanitizer, just from standing at the counter as long as he did.

He presses his cell phone to his chest and blows out a long, stressed breath. He watches his brother shuffle to a stop next to the Impala, watches Dean tilt his head and rub at the back of his neck like he's got a crick from sleeping wrong.

If only. Sam's putting on his best game face, same as his brother, but it's hard not to expect the worst. Hard not to fear that this will get worse before it gets better.

He returns the phone to his ear. "Cas, you there?"

_"Is…everything okay?"_ Asked hesitantly, out of obligation; in a way that makes it obvious Castiel is aware of EXACTLY how stupid and pointless the question is.

Sam clenches his jaw. "No, not really. Tell me you have something, man."

_"I do. Sam, it's a spell."_

"It's a what?"

_"A spell. It's – "_

"Rowena," Sam seethes in a low, dangerous tone, his skin crawling.

_"No, Sam – I don't think so."_

"Why not?" He frowns as Dean leans heavily against the side of the Impala, looking positively miserable – and suddenly _grossly_ pale – in the harsh glow of the parking lot light overhead.

_"Something feels off about it."_

Sam snorts. "It feels like playing dirty, and I'd say that's close enough."

A long moment passes before Castiel speaks again. _"Not a spell like this."_

"What do you mean? Cas, what sort of spell are we talking about here?" Sam narrows his eyes, worry churning in his gut as he watches Dean turn somewhat shakily and press a fist against the roof of the car.

His movements, his _pain_ …it all seems oddly familiar to Sam, propelling him forward across the parking lot as his mind spins. "Cas, before…you translated a – you think this is a spell meant to _reveal_ something?"

_"Yes."_

"To…Dean?" Sam picks up the pace, boot soles crunching broken glass and gravel.

_"It seems that way, but I'm still not sure how – "_

"Ah!"

With a sudden, agonized shout of pain, Dean grabs his head with both hands and slides down the side of the Impala to his knees.

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> His back is an amusement part of _ow._
> 
> But he's damn well allowed to be scared.
> 
> _It means you're a monster._
> 
> But he's still Sam, and that means that he'll be the one to ultimately decide for the both of them when enough's enough.
> 
> "You don't get like this over nothing, Dean."
> 
> Though a glance at the speedometer gives him a flash of fear for his life, Sam isn't going to tell his brother to slow down, not when he has this LOOK.
> 
> Sam leans against the door, looking at his brother appraisingly. 'You need a nap." _Or a sedative._
> 
> Dean smirks, doesn't say anything.


	6. Chapter Five

He makes a wrong turn on the way to the bar; takes a too-hard right when he should have veered left, and plays it off well enough. Makes a three-point-turn that would have had Dad beaming but throws Sam into the passenger-side door. He chuckles a little at his brother's curse, shrugs his shoulders and blames his mistake on the flickering street light on the corner, the headache. _Quit side-seat driving, Sasquatch._ But there's no denying it; there for a moment, Dean had needed Sam to jog his memory. And that both scares him and pisses him right the hell off.

He's passed the hole-in-the-wall bar a handful of times, and the dive's always caught his attention as a good place to find a cheap draft beer and probably a fight, information he'd filed away for the next time he found himself in the market for one. It happens now and then; certainly more _now_ than _then_ , and he doesn't always tell Sammy. Sometimes he doesn't have to, when there's an obvious patchwork quilt of mottled red and purple bruising around his eye from some lucky sonuvabitch getting in a good shot. But it's usually offensive damage that Dean brings home, and he screws around in the garage often enough that split, skinned knuckles have stopped warranting immediate comment from the peanut gallery.

So as Dean turns the Impala sharply onto the gravel lot, he dimly recalls the fluorescent overhang and the flickering red neon adorning the building. But once inside, there's not a single familiar face to be found in the crowd or behind the bar, and the twangy tune bleating from the ceiling speakers sets his teeth on edge, notches up the relentless pound in his head into brand new fucking territory.

Sam keeps giving him this look, silent but coming in loud and clear through the racket and tendrils of trendy vape smoke and a mass of patrons ten years their junior: _what the HELL, man?_

And Dean wishes he had an answer for that, he really does. He just ducks his head as they approach the bar and rubs the back of his aching neck, but he seems to be battin' a thousand today; the hole in his memory is still there, Sam's still irritated, and the pain won't subside. This… _thing_ is still on him, and he doesn't feel _right_ , knowing that.

"Oh, yeah. Chatted up some girl for a bit. Bought her a drink, then they left together."

That's news to Dean, and it's also about the last thing he really hears clearly before the ringing in his ears becomes a solid, high-pitched whine, like an airplane engine warming up for takeoff, and his eyes burn from the building pressure in his head. The quick drink of whiskey ain't doin' _shit_ for the pain and he thinks about ordering up another double neat, but Sam'll surely have something to say about that, and it just doesn't seem worth it. He's been trying _so damn hard_ to be pre-Mark of Cain Dean for Sammy, and the kid's bound to get whiplash soon, from all the quick, sideways glances he keeps throwing to make sure his big brother's okay.

Dean's _okay._ Really. Or, he will be, if he keeps telling himself so.

He's more or less on autopilot from this point on. He grins when he should and says all of the right things – the _expected_ , pre-Mark of Cain Dean things – but the forced, too-wide smile hurts his thrashed face and he can hardly hear his own voice anymore, so he just focuses on the bright light of annoyance beaming from his brother's narrowed eyes until even that becomes too much for his worthless goddamn brain to process properly.

Dean lets himself fade into the background, leaning heavily on the counter and struggling to keep up with the conversation. It's almost like he's on a time delay, coming up just a second short of all of the pertinent information being tossed back and forth between Sam and the burly guy behind the bar. The music's too loud and the whiskey's too little, and his head just. Won't. Stop. Pounding.

Suddenly the music cuts out and Sam's got him by the collar, hauling him close and demanding in a harsh whisper, "Dude, did you get freaking _roofied_ again?"

Dean stares back at his brother and swallows roughly, thinking _no_ and _shit_ and _what the literal FUCK, Sam_ , and then finally, how that actually makes a lot of sense, in a horrifying, nauseating sort of way. But more than anything, he's thinking that he's never quite been able to hear his own heartbeat _this_ clearly, and he's pretty sure his head is going to literally explode if he doesn't get some fresh air, _now._

He sloppily pushes Sam's hand from his chest and pulls away from his brother. He takes a breath and runs a hand down his face, and by God if his fingers don't just hit every single one of those bruises on the trip to his chin.

"This is pointless, Sam," he says, because there certainly ain't a damn thing that's happened since they walked through the door that's made him feel _better_ about his current position.

Things start to swim the moment Dean turns away from his brother, like the entire bar got sucked into the spin cycle of the bunker's antiquated, industrial-strength washing machine. The room tilts, or he does, and he sticks a hand out for balance, shoves at least one dancing millennial out of the way before his fingertips feel out the chilly glass of the entrance.

He stumbles across the gravel lot, through a maze of shiny, boxy cars and makes it to the Impala, could pick out his baby from a crowd of dozens, blindfolded. He leans heavily against the cool, night-kissed metal, rubbing once more at the tight spot at the base of his neck, an odd sort of pain rooted in that tainted spot between his shoulder blades, spreading like the branches of a tree to wrap his entire head in a vice.

Dean's been in a state of perpetual stress and exhaustion since the day his father died, and he's gone _days_ without sleep. But he's _never_ had a headache like this.

No, he thinks, swallowing against an abrupt, vicious rise of bile in his throat. He rotates against the side of the Impala, presses a tight fist against the roof. He _has_ had a headache like this before. Once. A long, long time ago – a literal _lifetime_ ago.

_You get headaches like that a lot?_

_No. Must be the stress._

_What the hell?_ Dean's fingers tense against the curve of the car and he blinks heavily, spots dancing on the edges of his vision. _Son of a –_

He can't help but cry out as the pain in his head suddenly flares like a supernova, and someone goes right ahead and pulls the rug out from under him, drops him to his knees in the gravel as he grabs desperately at his searing, thrumming temples. He thinks he might catch a blurry, watery glimpse of his brother running toward him, then the world slips sideways and everything falls away.

This succession of images pass by just as quickly as they had in the bunker: faceless men, a room, a table. He can't grab onto any one of them well or long enough to make sense of what he's seeing, and each ensuing picture is like a knife through his skull. There are voices in his head; more than one, a quick and animated exchange, but warbled enough that he can't make out exactly what's being said.

He's focusing on the voices, and Dean figures that's how he hears Sam before he sees him, his brother's voice a low rumble like thunder clapping overhead, and the filmstrip of pictures in his mind stutters, fuzzes. A single image lingers, a man's grinning face superimposed over his brother's worried expression. Familiar, maybe, in a way that tugs at Dean's rage more than his memory, but he can't put a name to the muddy, distorted form.

Then it's all gone – the pictures and the voices – like it was sucked out into a vacuum, and all he's got is a pounding head, a handful of sharp gravel and a giant, anxious brother looking to squeeze the life out of him through his fucking shoulders. Dean winces up at the stars, sucks in a hard, chest-rattling breath.

It's hard to tell what sort of mood you're going to catch Sam Winchester in, even if you're broken and bleeding, or just traded your life to save the kid. Sammy's prone to anger and he's all about extremes, but he at least has the decency to haul Dean up off of the uncomfortable gravel of the lot and prop him against the wheel well of the Impala before he starts in with the yelling.

"You _stupid_ son of a bitch. What did you see?"

Dean lays his aching head back against the car and blinks stupidly up at his brother, still trying to put all of Sam's words in the right order through the intense pain resonating throughout his fragile-feeling skull. "Wha – " He swallows a few times, until he's positive enough that Sammy's not about to cop it right in the lap. "What are you talking about?"

"That was a vision, right? And so was that – that _dizzy spell_ back in the bunker." Sam's nostrils flare, but his eyes are wide and his face is chalk-white, fear dulling the sharpest edges of his anger. "What did you _see?_ "

"I saw…" Dean starts, before he catches himself admitting to what's just transpired. "I don't know what the hell I saw, Sam." And, yeah, he wants his brother to quit fuckin' yelling and _back off_ a minute, but he's not lying. Not holding back, or trying to hide anything. He doesn't honestly know, certainly can't answer the question for Sam when he can't _begin_ to answer it for himself. And he really doesn't want to spend too much time dwelling on it while he's sitting on his ass in a parking lot.

His brother stares a long moment, worrying his lip. A look crosses his face, like he knows more than he'd care to say. It's an odd expression for this particular moment but not entirely out of place on Sam, who's _always thinking._ He's thinking now, in a very obvious way, and Dean watches as the anger starts to leach out of his features, and takes the opportunity to knead once more at that damn annoying twinge in his neck.

Sam finally nods to himself and gives Dean's shoulder one last squeeze; just solidarity and support in this one, not nearly as much frustration. He sits back on his heels and gives Dean some much-needed space, drags a hand through his hair and releases what's left of his anger on a hot puff of air. "Are you okay?"

A question they ask each other _a lot_ , out of obligation and concern but not at all because they expect an honest, up-front response. A question meant to mean _I know_ and _I care_ and _I gotcha_ , but they aren't afforded many opportunities to actually admit or give in to a moment of weakness, not in this life.

Dean knows that – he really does – but the ache in his neck and the railroad spike through his temple have thrown him off his game, not to mention the fact he might be having some sort of _visions_. He shakes his head gingerly and huffs out a short, humorless laugh. "No, I'm not fucking _okay_ , Sam. Dammit." He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, lets his eyes fall closed against the nauseating sensation of his brain slamming against his skull.

He realizes his slip, his admission, half a second too late, and raises his eyes slowly to meet his brother's.

Sam looks rocked. Pale and wounded, as good as slapped. Like _he's_ the one in pain, or maybe just like he's taken on some of Dean's for himself. He shifts his gaze away and nods to himself, thinking even more thoughts that he won't share with the class. "Okay. Let's get you back to the bunker, see what Cas has been able to come up with." He bounces a bit on his heels, reaches out to drag Dean upright.

Dean lifts a shoulder, tries to shrug off the help while pawing at the side of the Impala with his other hand. "Dude, I got it. Get offa me, I'm – "

Sam tightens his grip on Dean's upper arm, hauls him to his feet like it's _nothing_ , and steers him toward the passenger side of the car. "Do _not_ say you're okay, Dean. Not now."

He really wants to; wants to be pre-Mark of Cain Dean, and reassure Sam that this is nothing to worry about. That they're going to figure this out, and he's _okay._

But he's not, and he slipped; it's out there now, and he can't take it back. Can't make Sam unhear it, and he definitely can't control what the kid chooses to do with the information.

Dean doesn't put up much of a fight as his brother pushes him down onto the passenger side of the bench seat of _his own car._ He had it coming; might as well have asked for it. He presses his lips together and tilts against the glass of the window, knowing Sam is shooting him a dozen of those quick, anxious glances of his, but Dean doesn't say anything. Not even a half-assed reassurance that he'll be fine, unwilling to risk another slip on the short drive back to the bunker.

*******************************************************************

Castiel pushes up roughly from his seat as they enter, shoves his chair back from the table with a loud scrape. "What happened?"

Sam spares the angel a glance, taking note both of Cas' pale face and the way he still seems to require the support of the tabletop to stay upright. He doesn't know if the weakness is due to the lingering effects of Rowena's curse, or if the warding of this thing on his brother has royally kicked his friend's angelic ass. He guesses some combination of both, and files it away as something to ask about as soon as he gets Dean settled somewhere a little less vertical.

"He had a vision," he says curtly, marching his silent, stumbling and only semi-cooperative brother straight through the library. Dean had dozed off in the car, and rousing him had taken more work than Sam is comfortable with. Keeping him on his feet now is proving to be an even harder task.

The angel gapes at the revelation but doesn't seem to have any immediate answer, and so Sam doesn't have any immediate use for him. He doesn't mean to be an ass, but his priority is Dean, whose bruised face is creased with deep lines of pain, and who can't seem to walk a straight line if his life depended on it.

He swallows, jabs a finger at the spread of open books laid out across the table while keeping his other fist twisted tightly in the collar of Dean's jacket. "Keep at it. I'll be right back."

Cas' eyes narrow in concern, but he nods, lowers himself gingerly back into his chair and lays his palm atop one of the open books. The effort of standing has drained his complexion to a wan, ghostly shade Sam's never before seen on the angel. Or on any angel.

_One goddamned problem at a time_ , he pleads, doing his best to keep Dean from smacking his head against a wall in the corridor.

He elbows open the door to Dean's room and bypasses the light switch, deposits his weak, swaying brother onto his bed for the second time in as many days.

Dean immediately folds over, props his elbows on his thighs and rubs at his temples. He looks like warmed-over crap, with or without the benefit of light in the room.

_What the hell kind of spell_ is _this?_ Sam muses, thinking back on what Cas had said before Dean dropped in the parking lot, and remembering the migraine-esque side effects of his own visions like it was yesterday. He knows what will and won't work, what Dean's sore head will and won't appreciate. So, negative on the lights, and he steps swiftly to the small sink, spins the tap and runs ice-cold water over the hopefully-clean washcloth hanging on the lip of the basin. He turns, offers the cloth to his brother. "Here."

Dean groans his thanks and haphazardly drapes the washcloth across of the back of his neck, then immediately returns to kneading at his temples. Never opens his eyes, and swallows a few times like he might be sick.

Sam toes the small trash can closer, just in case, and goes next to the desk. He finds aspirin in the first drawer he tries, because even the most stubborn of martyrs is prone to the occasional migraine. He has to physically pull his brother's hand away from his head to drop the pills into his palm, and Dean gags a bit as he dry-swallows them, looks very seriously for a moment like he's going to spit them right back up into the trash can.

"Takes it outta you, huh?" Sam says after his brother's breathing even out a bit. He takes a step back, frowns.

"Mmm." Dean swallows once more, then scoots carefully back until he can lean against the headboard, at a twisted angle that Sam can't help but think has to be horribly uncomfortable.

But he knows his big brother better than the jackass knows himself. Even if Dean isn't aware that the reason he won't just lay the hell down is because he doesn't want to seem vulnerable or weak in front of his little brother, Sam knows. He's fading fast, but Sam's not letting his brother fall asleep without getting _something_ from him. His pain in the wake of this vision definitely seems more similar to the ones Sam used to get from Yellow Eyes than it does whatever had happened to him back at that hospital, but he has to ask.

"Was it Hell?"

Dean's eyes spring open like someone flipped a switch. "What? No." He squirms uncomfortably, a line of pain and confusion creasing his brow. "Why?"

That's the expected response, because if you wanna lock Dean Winchester up as nice and tight as bank vault, this is the way you do it. This is also exactly the sort of situation in which Sam's been conditioned to not believe a damn word that comes out of his brother's mouth, but he's intentionally caught Dean in a raw, vulnerable moment, in far too much pain to slide a mask in place or be anything other than honest.

So Sam believes him, and has to therefore also believe that means this vision of Dean's and these markings, they don't have any connection to what he'd seen back in that hospital. He makes a quick, executive decision to keep that to himself for the time being. _One goddamned problem at a time_ , he reminds himself. "You just look…I dunno. Shaken up." Dean's nowhere near the top of his game, so it's a good enough deflection, and not untrue.

Dean chuffs a small, self-conscious sound and presses his fingertips to his bruised forehead. He winces from the tenderness there, the effort in remembering, or some combination of both. "No, it was…I was meeting someone, I think. _They_ were meeting someone."

Sam straightens, crosses his arms. He'd meant to make this quick, wasn't going to push any further until Dean got some much-needed rest, but he'll take any information his brother volunteers. Anything to help he and Cas drum up some answers. "Who?"

Dean groans, shakes his head a bit. "I don't know."

"No, Dean, _who_ was meeting someone?"

"I don't _know_ ," he snaps in return, dropping his hand away. "Jesus." The exertion has left him white beneath still-healing bruises, drained and exhausted and clearly miserable. Dean's hand visibly trembles where it lies atop his leg.

Sam guiltily drops his gaze away, eyes landing on the untouched, gross-looking pile of bread and lunchmeat that was a carefully-made sandwich two days ago. "You should eat something."

"Sure," Dean agrees, though they both know any appetite he'd managed to find earlier is long gone.

"Okay." Sam nods. "I'll get you something. Just…get some rest, okay? I'll let you know when Cas and I have something." When; not _if._ He can't afford _if._ They've moved this party well beyond the territory of _if._

"Sure," his brother repeats, hollowly, eyes falling closed as he turns his head away.

Sam waits until the lines in Dean's face smooth as he drifts to sleep, but when he retreats into the hall he feels no better than he did when he went into the room.

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt Lines included in this chapter:
> 
> It's out there now, though, and he can't take it back. Can't make Sam unhear it.
> 
> "Sure," Dean agrees, though they both know any appetite he'd managed to find earlier is long gone now.
> 
> Not if. They've moved this party well beyond the territory of if.
> 
> Sam retreats into the hall feeling no better than he did when he went in.


	7. Chapter Six

Dean sleeps until one in the afternoon, if what takes place can really be called _sleep._ He spends all night and well into the next day drifting in and out of nightmares, tossing fitfully and occasionally blinking himself awake with a pounding heart, a roaring head, and a silent warning on his lips. Each time, he expects to find Sam next to the bed, staring at him. Watching with wide, anxious eyes, and waiting for some assurance that his big brother's okay.

But the room is always empty and dark, door respectfully pulled shut against the intrusion of the bright light from the hallway, and Dean drops back into tortured, restless slumber. He goes down the hall to take a leak at some point, squinting around a headache that doesn't know when to say _when_ and slowly palming his way along the cool tile, and kicks his boots off before falling back into bed.

When he wakes for good it's in a cold sweat with his limbs twisted up in the blankets, feeling confused and fairly nauseated, but the sleep he's managed to log – however cobbled together it's been – seems to have put a Band-Aid on the headache. Then he moves, an innocent shift of his arm from underneath the covers.

_Son of a BITCH._

Scratch that. His head still hurts _plenty._

The very second he drags his eyes fully open and starts thinking thoughts of a vertical nature, the cork pops out of the bottle, and the pound picks up in earnest, an off-rhythm drumbeat seemingly resonating from behind his fucking _eyeballs._

Dean groans, rolls his head against his sweat-drenched pillow and moves his hands up to sluggishly rub the grit of sleep from his burning eyes. If he's lucky, maybe he can rid himself of the gauzy remnants of this latest round of dreaming, too.

At best, the bits and pieces of nightmare that Dean can recall are hazy wisps, but they seem to run more or less along the same awful lines as the rest of his dreams have since the Mark of Cain was torn away; the faces of wounded or dead friends and family, and a deep, cutting sense of regret that leaves his chest aching. But something new has been thrown into the mix; something or _someone_ who's familiar, and a name on the tip of his tongue, just out of his grasp. It's a damn irritating sensation, matched only by the gnawing pit that seems to have opened up in his stomach over the course of the night.

The persistent, jackhammering twinge in Dean's head and neck is still making him slightly queasy, but he's also unquestionably _ravenous_ , and can't honestly remember if Sam ever came back to the room with any food. Dragging himself into a seated position wrings more than one choked curse from his lips, but making it all the way to his feet isn't quite as bad as he'd worried it would be. And once he's completely upright, he feels comparatively fantastic. The pound in his skull even recedes to something more closely resembling the constant, low-key headache that's accompanied him each day for the past ten years. One built from stress and whiskey and lack of sleep, from the accumulation of more concussions than the average NFL linebacker; one that doesn't _really_ affect his daily functioning until he starts poking at it. The aspirin bottle is already out on the desktop, and he tosses back a few tablets, swallows them with a palmful of cold water from the sink.

Dean spares a long moment standing there with water dripping from his stubbled chin, hands framing the shallow basin as he inspects his pathetic reflection in the mirror. He still looks chalky and bruised, with visible smudges of exhaustion under his eyes, but the hours that have passed have done well to soften the damage left by Castiel's spell-enraged fists. The worst of the contusions have faded from maroon and purple to yellow and green, and the swelling along his busted cheek has all but gone down. He tentatively probes at the spot, hisses but doesn't feel the need to vomit. So, progress.

He's moving slowly and feels anything but rested, and he doesn't bother doing much in the way of cleaning up – just splashes a few more handfuls of cold water over his face and brushes his teeth, because his mouth feels hot and foul, like some nasty little creature wandered into his room and onto his face just to die and rot there. He wrangles a shirt free from the pile of freshly laundered clothes his brother left inside the door, and when he's adjusting the collar of the denim button-down, his fingers inadvertently brush the very topmost part of the intricate tattoo on his back. The one that, for all of a few hours of horribly unsatisfying sleep, he'd managed to forget about.

A chill drops down Dean's spine and he pulls his hand away as though he's been burned. He stands stock still in the center of his room, breathing hard and fast and listening to the too-loud _thump thump_ of his own heart. Then with a harsh, loud exhalation through his nostrils, he stubbornly raises his fingers back to the spot and feels out the slightly raised texture of the markings. He chews his lower lip, struggling to remember _anything_ about how they got there.

_Chatted up some girl for a bit. Bought her a drink, then they left together._

It's not unlike Dean to not be able to pull the right name from the top of his head, but have no memory whatsoever of this girl?

_Dude, did you get freaking roofied again?_

The hole in his memory is a damning bit of evidence, but how the hell is Dean supposed to know how to answer that question? He needs a description, a name, an address. Fuck, just somewhere to _start._

Then it hits him that it's been at least fifteen hours that he's been out of the game. Surely, they would have woken him if they'd uncovered a real, concrete answer or lead, but who really knows what sort of trouble his brother and Castiel have managed to get into without him. Dean drags on his boots without bothering to lace them up, and draws open the door.

When he shuffles into the library, he catches the two in the middle of an animated but hushed exchange, like they're worried their voices will wake him clear down the hall. The conversation comes to a sudden – and not in the least bit subtle – stop as soon as his brother sees him approach.

Sam straightens from where he's leaning over the table and grins in a way that's warm, but far too forced. "Hey." His eyebrows draw together, an obvious sort of concern that tightens a vice around Dean's chest. "Thought you were sleeping?"

"Slept," he returns shortly, stepping up to the table. He nods a tight greeting to Cas, and sends a cursory glance over the mess the two have managed to compile – numerous books and notepads, a few magnified, full-page color printouts of the picture Sam had taken with his cell phone, with coffee mugs and paper plates thrown in the mix. In the end, though, it's his little brother's red eyes and weary expression that hold his attention. "What about you? Dude, it's past noon."

Sam frowns and brings his left wrist up into his line of sight, eyes widening as he takes note of the time. He completely ignores the question, which is enough of an answer in itself, and raises his gaze back to Dean, lifts an eyebrow appraisingly. "No offense, man, but it doesn't seem to have worked."

"Yeah, well," Dean grumbles, dragging a chair away from the table and dropping into it, in what he hopes to pass off as a casual manner. He forces his eyes to skip right over those horribly invasive photos of the mysterious ink on his back and picks up one of the mugs, squinting down at the few remaining inches of long-cold, murky brown coffee and debating how badly he wants the shot of caffeine. "Everybody's a critic."

His brother is a special sort of stubborn, and isn't about to let him off of the hook so easily. Sam takes a step closer and folds his arms across his chest. "Did you have any other…you know?"

"No," Dean clips, annoyed by the question and too tired and achy to hide it. He lets the mug _thunk_ back against the tabletop. "You don't think I would've led with that?"

Sam raises a hand as if to say _fair enough_ , and swallows a yawn that seems capable of cracking his jaw. He then proceeds to go through the same dance as Dean just has, with a second coffee cup.

"Seriously, Dean. How are you feeling?"

Cas – who looks no better than Dean himself does – is about the _last_ one who needs to be worrying about such a thing, and it takes a fair amount of effort for Dean to hold back an exaggerated eye roll, especially as he watches his exhausted brother lose a battle of wills to a half-filled cup of ice-cold coffee.

"Fantastic," he deadpans, resisting the urge to knead at his sore neck. He lays his forearms on the tabletop instead, laces his fingers together while his stomach looses an unhappy, audible rumble. "Starving. Where are we?"

Sam and Cas exchange an odd look, and his brother's mouth makes a small, surprised 'o' as he turns back and eyes Dean quizzically. "The…bunker?"

This time he does roll his eyes, throws a hand toward the towering stack of books the others had collected while he was catching z's. Sam should consider himself lucky Dean doesn't grab one up and chuck it at his head. "With the research, dumbass."

"Right. Sorry." Sam sighs, pushes both hands through his hair, props a hip against the edge of the table. "We've, uh, we've been up all night."

"No shit." Dean raises his eyebrows, struggling to ignore the lazy, worthless feeling tugging at the back of his mind, from _lying down_ for _hours_ while Sam and Cas worked through the night, searching for a way to help him out of this mess he stepped in. "At least tell me it was worth it."

"We know it's a spell," Cas says, his voice sounding low and gruff, weary. Pained.

"Rowena," Dean spits immediately, nostrils flaring. He moves to shove up from the table, to stomp right out of the bunker and find the tiny witch, then proceed to rip her apart piece by tiny piece.

Sam stops him with a raised, splayed hand. "That was my first instinct, too, but we're pretty sure it's not her."

"How?" Dean demands.

"Because as long as we've known her, Rowena's magic has been mostly defensive. Reactive. Like what she did to those girls, and, uh, Cas." Sam pauses, eyes darting to the angel. He recovers quickly and lifts one of the photo printouts, holding it out for Dean to see. "He says a lot of these sigils haven't been seen or used in…well, a pretty damn long time, and they've never been seen used _together_ like this."

Dean squints, and decides to blame his need for clarification on the lack of coffee. "What are you saying?"

His brother sighs that special Sam Winchester sigh that's equal parts patience and stall tactic. "That this spell is…intricate. Homemade, and really damn complicated. It took someone a long time to put this together."

Dean sits back heavily, not liking how any of that sounds. "How long we talkin' here?"

"Weeks, at least," Cas supplies. "Maybe months."

"Months?" Dean gapes, eyes wide. He lifts a hand, waggles a finger between the others. "And you two figured this all out in one _night?_ "

Sam's eyes drift down to Castiel, and he lifts a shoulder. "Like I said, this is exactly why we keep an angel on the payroll. Plus," he continues, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. "Rowena's gutsy, but she's not that stupid."

"Huh?"

"To mess with my big brother like this."

Dean opens his mouth, shuts it with an audible _clack._ He's oddly touched, and at the same time, finds himself feeling immediately self-conscious. He clears his throat, rotates his head on his neck and rubs at the knot at the base of his skull.

Sam's eyes narrow at the motion, and he sneaks a not-at-all subtle peek at his watch. "Head still buggin' you?"

"S'okay." Dean drops his hand away to thump atop the table. "You know the drill."

He's aiming to lighten the mood more than anything – because Sammy's visions were such a rip-roarin' good time – but his brother definitely doesn't look amused. Sam shakes his head. "No, Dean, it's been…this isn't anything like – you're sure you didn't…didn't _see_ anything else since the bar?"

" _No_ ," he snaps, refusing to give in to the worry his brother's words have ignited in his gut.

A weighted silence hangs in the air between the three of them, before Sam finally speaks up again. "So, we think we may have something. A, uh, lead."

Dean sits back in his chair, taps his fingertips against the wooden arm. "Okay. That's vague."

"Because it _is_ vague," Cas says sharply, throwing a look up at Sam. "What we have is just a name on a sixty-year-old contact list. It's not an answer."

"It's something," Sam argues. "Someone who can help us."

"No, Sam, it _might_ be something. It _might_ be someone who can help us."

Dean whistles sharply, which draws the attention of the other two but is honestly a pretty asinine move on his part. He squints around the bleat of pain he's just inadvertently raised in his own skull. "Man, I spend a day sleepin' and you two start bickering like an old married couple. Christ." He shakes his head, brings a hand up to his chest. "Speaking as the guy who actually has this cryptic-ass shit on his back, I'll take _might be something_ over _nothing_ , okay, Cas?"

Castiel's eyes narrow, but he nods curtly. "Yes. Of course."

"Okay." Dean rubs at his eyebrow, tries his damnedest to make the motion look like one of good-natured annoyance, and not of stress or pain. "You said something about a contact list?"

"Uh, yeah." Sam pulls away from the table, spins and drags a sheet of paper free of a manila folder. "Cas found this in the archives. It's a list of names for known associates of the Men of Letters. They weren't ever invited to be members, but were experts in different fields, used as resources for...well, whatever it was the Men of Letters were doing at the time."

Dean takes the paper from his brother and scans the list of names, most of which seem to specialize in magic and spells, which, yeah, could definitely be helpful. "Wait – weren't the Men of Letters supposed to be the experts in all this stuff?"

Sam cocks his head. "Sort of, but – they were meant to be observers, remember? Not practitioners. And when they exiled Magnus – Sinclair, whoever – they, uh, lost their Master of Spell." He suddenly snaps his fingers. "Hey. Dean."

Dean looks up, feeling odd and slow, and finds his brother frowning. Sam's eyes sliding sideways to Cas, who's straightened in his seat. He swallows, exhales. "Hmm?"

"Nothing, you just – it looked like you drifted for a second." Sam narrows his eyes. "Where'd you go?"

Dean shakes his head, runs a palm across the back of his neck. "Something about what you said just…I dunno. It's nothin.'"

"You sure?"

"Positive." He taps the page with a finger, holds it aloft. "What are these dates?"

"Dates of death," Sam says simply. "All but one." He points a name near the middle of the list. "Gerald Duncan. This doesn't mean he is alive, of course, just that he was alive in fifty-eight, or the last time anyone updated these records."

"So, what?" Dean raises his eyebrow. "We're looking for a dude who's in his nineties? At _least?_ "

Cas cocks his head, directs a pointed glare up at Sam, who scratches at his cheek. "I know, man, it's thin, to say the least, but if he's got access to resources we don't, and expertise in rare spellwork…"

Pain spikes in Dean's head, cuts a course down his sore neck and spreads like wildfire through his upper back, almost like it's _drawn_ to the tattoo there. He swallows, realizes that he's completely willing to take _thin_ over _jack squat_. "Okay. What's the story with this guy?"

"Well," Sam says, rubbing at his no-doubt tired eyes. "His last known location was Baton Rouge."

"I'm almost afraid to ask." Dean leans forward, laces his fingers together atop the table. "S'there a Gerald Duncan listed anywhere in Baton Rouge?"

"No," his brother responds. The corner of his mouth curves upward. "But there's an Albert Magnus."

*************************************************************

A fourteen-hour haul wouldn't typically be one that necessitated an overnight stop, Sam has no intentions – or illusions – of driving straight through to Louisiana. Even after a long stretch of sleep and a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches, Dean still looks little better than a horror movie extra, and the persistence of these headaches of his is definitely cause for concern. Sam's own migraines were _wicked_ and he'd gone through stockpiles of aspirin during the heyday of his visions, but they'd traditionally tapered off within a few hours, and as with any headache, sleep almost always helped.

It takes a fair amount of effort on his part to convince Cas that he's still in no condition to accompany them, and Dean joins in, which is just so much the pot calling the kettle black, it leaves Sam at a loss for words. The angel eventually concedes to stay behind, not for the sake of resting, but to continue their research, with the very real possibility of this lead falling through. Whatever; he'll count it as a win. Because that's just the _first_ battle Sam's going to have to wage before leaving the bunker.

Dean makes it all the way to the side of the car before it hits him. He comes to an abrupt stop and frowns, dropping his duffel to the cement and patting down his pockets.

There really is no good way to go about something like this, so Sam opts for humor. He stands by the trunk and lifts the key ring, jingles it like he's trying to tempt a kitten out of hiding. The sounds echoes off of the concrete walls of the garage. "Looking for something?"

His brother isn't amused, stomps a foot and holds out his hand. "Give me the keys, Sam."

He shakes his head. "Nuh uh, Dean. We just tag-teamed Cas to tell him that he's got no business being out, and, dude, you look…" _About a thousand times worse_ , is what he thinks, and almost says. But Sam doesn't dare acknowledge such a thing, and leave that door open.

Dean cocks his head. "I look fantastic, like usual." He raises his outstretched palm, waggles his fingers. "Now gimme the damn keys, and get your ass in the car."

"Not a chance in Hell, Dean." Sam closes his fist around the keys, shifts the strap of the bag over his shoulder. "How many times did you let me behind the wheel when I was having visions?"

"I'm not – " Dean clenches his jaw, growls in frustration. "It's not like I'm HAVING them, Sam. I'm just, you know…having them," he finishes lamely.

"Whatever, man. You look like shit, and I know you're hurting." Dean's face remains stony, and Sam cocks an eyebrow, drags out the big guns. "Which is more important to you, Dean? Your pride? Or the Impala?"

The ensuing staring match goes _just_ long enough for Sam to fear his big brother is even more a stubborn jackass than he'd ever thought possible.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Dean sleeps until one in the afternoon.
> 
> "Thought you were sleeping."
> 
> "Doesn't seem to have worked."
> 
> Dean cocks his head. "I look fantastic, like usual. Get your ass in the car."


	8. Chapter Seven

Dean picks up a crinkle-cut fry. He studies it a long moment, weighing the benefits of one more bite of food against the rising protest in his gut, and curls his lip, drops the fry back to the now-lukewarm pile on his mostly-full plate.

Across the narrow booth, his brother sighs in a way that lets Dean know the kid's decided to throw in the towel on discretion for the time being, which he supposes isn't anything he shouldn't have already known.

_Nag, nag, nag._

_Yeah? Get used to it._

He'd rather not get used to it, though. He doesn't need it, doesn't _want_ to need it, and doesn't want his little brother to think he does. Definitely not Sam giving him these wide, worried looks and ordering dinner for him when he leaves the table to take a leak and – sure – sneak a handful of aspirin away from his brother's doe-y, inquisitive eyes. Dean glances away, in the direction of the kitchen, then sneers down at the untouched glass of iced tea sweating on the other side of his full plate. ICED TEA. _Christ, Sam._ He should have done without the aspirin.

This place certainly isn't much, but has a few domestic bottled beers on the menu, and Sam knew what he was doing. He always does. It's a trap, one Dean's not going to stroll into. Not going to order a drink now, and open that door. Not going to make it seem like that's something he _needs._ He wipes grease and salt from his fingers onto a paper napkin, then wads it up and chucks it into the gap between their two plates. "What," he demands flatly, squaring his shoulders and balancing his wrists against the edge of the table.

"Nothin'," Sam returns, with a childlike petulance that makes it clear this is anything but _nothin'._

Dean rolls his eyes and looks back down at his barely-eaten dinner. He abandons the fries and pokes disinterestedly at what's left of his burger, contemplates sliding out the half-strip of bacon because, come on. Bacon. The aspirin has made his headache a bit more bearable, but his stomach lurches at the thought of another single bite, and he draws his hand away from the plate altogether.

"Hey." Sam kicks him under the table, a sharp, fearless jab in the shin. "Quit playing with that and eat it," he warns, in that tone he's being taking the past few weeks, the one that suggests he's forgotten his place in the family hierarchy.

"Not hungry," Dean says.

"Okay." Sam narrows his eyes and draws the word out over the length of several seconds, like it's a bit of information he's adding to some hidden mental stockpile.

Dean shakes his head. "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"All of this – whatever you're doing. Knock it off."

"I'm not doing anything," his brother counters quietly, though years of experience, the look on his face and that damned glass of iced tea between them tell Dean differently.

They sit that way for a beat, not speaking, just listening to the unintelligible sounds of the other diner patrons' conversations.

"You think Cas is gonna be okay?" Sam asks without segue.

"Yeah, he'll be fine," Dean responds automatically, without putting much thought into the reply. Cas _has_ to be okay, always, just like Sam has to be fine, always. That's just the way it is.

As for Dean, himself, well…he's always fine enough.

Across the table, his brother executes a huff-eye roll combination that says he knows exactly what Dean's train of thought, or the lack thereof, is. Sam jabs his fork into a heap of leafy green rabbit food but doesn't bring the bite up to his mouth, and Dean contemplates returning the shin-kick. Instead, he rolls his head on his shoulders, bringing up his right hand to knead at that stubborn-ass knot in his neck.

Sam's frown deepens, and he abandons what's left of his meal in much the same way Dean had. "Your head still bugging you?"

Dean drops his hand away immediately, thumps it to the tabletop with enough force to rattle the silverware. "No."

"Dude, this is…" Sam glances around the tiny diner, leans in conspiratorially and jabs a finger at Dean. "Ignoring the fact that you still look beat to _hell_ , Dean, those marks on your back aren't like anything we've ever seen before," he says in a harsh whisper. "They aren't anything _Cas_ has ever seen before."

Dean narrows his eyes, a motion that only serves to tug at the bruised skin along his cheek and stoke that fading heat between his temples back to a roaring flame. "Yeah?"

Sam makes that fist that means _dammit_ , Dean and thumps it lightly against the table. "You have to be honest with me, man. About anything that…about _everything._ "

No, he doesn't. Not really, and not ever. That's a big brother's worry, and a big brother's burden, and he wouldn't ever put such a weight on the kid's shoulders. Hasn't yet, not intentionally. Not when he could help it. Isn't about to start _now_ , not after…

"Okay," Dean clips, with a sharp jerk of his chin. "I get it."

"Okay." Sam takes a sip from his own glass of tea, then goes to work anxiously picking at the corner of his paper placemat. "So what's up with your head?"

Dean almost laughs, feels the tickle building in his throat. _What's up with my head?_ He doesn't know where to begin, isn't even sure that's a question he himself is equipped to answer. Then he sees the unquestionable fear that's buried beneath his little brother's almost overbearing worry, and the laugh dies before it reaches his lips.

If he's really being honest with himself – which is admittedly not one of his fortes – Dean can't fault the kid for his fear. He gets it, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little afraid himself. He hadn't exactly been forthcoming with what the Mark of Cain was doing to him over the course of all those months. The little changes that were happening inside, the fire _burning_ in his veins when he resisted spilling blood at the Mark's urging. Sam had to have felt blindsided when he finally let it all go, despite the fact these changes had been taking place steadily over the course of more than a year.

This thing with the Mark of Cain – it had come with a warning but started out benign enough. But it had _done_ something to him, before and after the demon was born. Twisted him up inside, made him into something cruel and awful, something that truly terrified him. So he understands his brother's fear. This tat on his back is already making Dean _see_ things; who's to say it won't also make him _do_ things?

"It's not that bad," he says lamely, quietly, and completely aware that he's bullshitting his brother. Just another way of rejecting all of those offerings Sam thinks he _needs._

They've been around this track once or twice before. Sam sighs, something weary and worried and vaguely put-upon. "Come on," he says. "If you're not gonna eat any more of that, let's get a room for the night."

When they pulled off of the interstate into the diner's parking lot, Sam had tried to make it seem like they were stopping because he needed a break, and not because Dean still felt – and yeah, okay, looked – like shit on a stick. But Dean's not that stupid, and Sam's not that good an actor.

"It's not that far a drive, Sam," he tries to reason, not for the first time. He drops a glance down at his watch. "We really don't need to – "

"We've still got at least eight hours on the road, Dean. We'll pick it up in the morning. Drop it."

_It's not even eight 'o clock,_ is the response on his lips, but Dean's weary body betrays him, loosing a painfully jaw-cracking yawn instead, and a fresh jolt rips through his skull. He presses his lips into a tight line and executes an even tighter nod.

Sam doesn't wait to thumb war over the bill or even give Dean the opportunity to stiffly wrangle his wallet from his back pocket. He just wordlessly scoops up the check and makes for the register, rapping his knuckles against the tabletop as he passes, letting the hollow knock take the place of whatever else it is he's got to say, but won't.

The motel Sam picks is nicer than the dives they'd gotten used to staying in during those first few years back hunting together. It's a new pattern that's emerged over the course of the past few years, because they aren't scraping by like they used to, and they can be thrifty but don't have to settle for the flea-infested dumps they once frequented. What little money they come by – however dishonestly that may be – has been lasting longer now that they call the Men of Letters bunker home, and they aren't dipping into hard-won cash reserves for rooms on the road as often as they used to.

Dean takes it upon himself to liberate his brother's bed of his pillows while Sam's still wrestling in all of the bags he _had_ to carry from the car, goes to work creating a fluffy sleeping surface his still-aching head will appreciate.

"Dude," Sam complains.

"It's for my health," Dean returns as he settles back, straight-faced. "Hey, don't look at me like that. You're the one who wanted me to be honest and take care of myself."

"You're a jerk."

And Sam might not be wrong about that, but he's also not getting his pillows back.

************************************************************************

Dean falls asleep easily enough, and uncharacteristically early, helped along by the extra pillows he'd pilfered from his brother's bed and the handful of ibuprofen he'd allowed to be pressed into his hand; Sam's not-so-subtle attempt at smoothing those harsh lines of discomfort from his features.

After Dean drifts off, looking no less battered but somewhat less pained, Sam takes the opportunity to check in with Castiel and confirm there's been no progress in the angel's research back at the bunker. Something that leads Cas to remind him – and with a fair amount of attitude – that he would have called otherwise.

Sam tilts the lampshade away from his softly snoring brother and settles at the small table with his tablet and a cup of coffee from the single-serving brewer, goes to work scouring the internet for some sign of _any_ of the strange symbols decorating Dean's back. His eyes start to blur after an hour of focusing on the computer's bright screen, and his notepad contains nothing new. _Reveal. Visions._ He gives up shortly after that, brushes his teeth and hits the lights, and rolls his eyes at the sight of his brother snoring away under the cushion of every damn pillow in the room.

He's forced to use a square of folded-up blanket as his own pillow, and isn't sleeping comfortably, or well, here in room 203 of the Wolf Creek Lodge in Oklahoma City. So he's already mostly awake as the first snippets of his brother's sleep-roughened, tortured voice break through the haze of semi-consciousness.

"Next time…won't miss."

It's not been very often than one of _Dean's_ nightmares has woken _Sam._ There was once a time when his older brother could fall face-down onto his pillow and not move for a solid nine hours, seemingly dead to the world. Sam could putter about the room, be in and out of the shower and in and out of the room for coffee and doughnuts before Dean first stirred. But that was before the man had literally been through Hell and back, before every last person he'd ever dared to love had died.

At least a dozen times over the course of those first few months after Cas rescued him from Hell, and then a couple more in the direct aftermath of purgatory, Sam had the distinct displeasure of being woken in the wee hours of the morning by his brother's wounded pleas and hoarse shouts of pain, to find Dean twisted in his blankets, fighting an unseen threat. It's always taken a fair amount of grace and wicked reflexes to wake Dean from such a dream, and each of the three times Sam had taken a shallow swipe of that knife across the forearm, he'd received a look that was equal parts _sorry_ and _told ya so._

The problem – well, _this_ problem – with Dean is that he's so frustratingly self-conscious and closed-off, he seems to have developed some crazy new ability over these rougher years, in which he can wake _himself_ from a nightmare before he inadvertently wakes his brother. Sam may not have been woken by Dean's thrashing and yelling more than a handful of times, but he's sure got a lot of experience with waking up to find his older brother sitting upright in his bed in the dark, still and silent and breathing heavily. Sometimes he'd let Dean know he was up, but it never seemed to matter much; "Go back to sleep, Sammy" is all that's ever been said in such a moment.

Other than those few times – those few extreme and horrible special circumstances – Sam's always been the more nightmare-prone of the two.

Or so he'd thought. So he'd stupidly assumed.

"'M so sorry, kiddo."

Sam sits up in bed, straightens his spine with a _crack_ as his mind slowly and sleepily works its way through what he's hearing. He figures it out right about the time he realizes this is the first time he's shared a room with his brother since the Mark was lifted, and his blood runs cold.

_Dammit, Dean. Why didn't you SAY anything?_

He didn't know it'd gotten so bad, after the Mark. How could he? They spend most of their nights in separate rooms now, and the walls in the bunker are concrete reinforced with iron. Sound doesn't really travel those halls unless you mean for it to. And why would he? Dean's been acting _fine._ Back to his old self, like a switch flipped, like it never even happened. The Darkness is a mysterious but unquestionable danger that's out there somewhere and the new threat of this tattoo has them both stressing, but the Mark of Cain isn't _on Dean_ anymore, and it's seemed to be such a relief to both of them, such a burden lifted.

It's been mere _days._ God, he's such a fucking idiot.

"Sammy, close your eyes," his brother murmurs, voice breaking on the end of the whisper, and that's what does it for Sam.

He nearly face-plants into the carpet in his haste to reach Dean's side.

Sam snaps on the lamp between their beds and when the light's not enough to wake his brother, he slides a quick, practiced hand beneath Dean's stack of pillows. He doesn't know whether to feel relief or worry when his fingers come back out without the anticipated hidden weaponry. Either it's a paranoid phase Dean's grown out of, or this thing's got him so messed up in the head the thought hadn't even occurred to him.

"Dean, hey," he starts quietly, crouching down and gently jostling his brother's shoulder, all the while knowing he's not using nearly enough volume or force to wake the man.

Dean's throat works and he turns his head away, lets slip another string of quiet, heartfelt words, but Sam doesn't catch these. It's probably better that way.

" _Dean_ ," he tries again, stronger and with a much firmer shake of his brother's shoulder, and this time the combination brings Dean's head rolling back toward him.

He comes awake with a harsh intake of breath, and instantly recoils at Sam's presence next to his head. His wide eyes communicate the _back up_ that seems to get lodged in his throat.

It stings but Sam gets the message loud and clear, and he lets go of his brother's arm, lifts his hands nonthreateningly and hops back to sit on the edge of the other bed.

Dean doesn't push himself upright immediately, just lies there for a long, silent moment, blinking at the ceiling. After what seems like hours, he sucks in another loud breath and raises his hands to scrub at his eyes. "Go back to sleep, Sammy," he says, low and rough and like he has every other time.

But this isn't every other time, and Sam's not going to let up that easily. "I didn't know you were dreaming like that," he says softly, and mostly to his hands.

"Yeah, sorry," Dean drawls thickly. "I guess I forgot to put it in the bunker newsletter."

"I just thought it was done, the Mark." _Stupid_ , Sam berates himself. "I thought we were past it."

"We are," Dean responds, still staring up at the ceiling. The stack of pillows he's accumulated works as well as a fortress, not affording his little brother a clear view of his expression.

"Dean, we're not – " Sam bites off his words, shakes his head. He wishes his brother would just _look at him_ , instead of keeping everything locked away. "You're not okay, man. Clearly. In more ways than…more than this spell."

"I'm fine, Sam."

"Dean, you have to stop – "

"God, Sam, I said I'm _fine._ " Dean's tone is lethal, and when he finally turns his head, there's a coldness in his eyes that's frightening. But it's a familiar chill, one that comes to the surface only when he's trying desperately to cover something he deems so much worse. Something like fear. Vulnerability. "Just…just let it go, Sammy. Please."

He doesn't give his brother the chance to respond – not to agree or launch a fresh argument – just roughly flings the covers off and shoves up to his feet. Dean stalks across the room into the bathroom, and closes the door with enough force to rattle the tacky framed pictures on the wall.

****************************************************************

He regrets it immediately, slamming the door. He might as well have just handed his little brother a note that reads _ignore everything I just said, because I'm not fine._

_Stupid._ Dean spins the tap to run the cold water a full-blast from the faucet, but the sound of the rushing water doesn't cover the frantic pound of his heart, and the palmful he splashes over his face doesn't do a damn thing to clear his pounding head, or his blurry eyes.

He leaves the water running and leans on the counter, but refuses to look up at that pathetic face in the mirror.

Sammy's just gotten a glimpse behind the curtain, an eyeful of all of the things Dean's been trying so damn hard to keep off of his little brother's radar. Because now Sam will have to _know_ , and that's not something Dean's willing to give. He's locked the pain of the Mark of Cain away, and no one – not even Sammy – is going to get him to open that lid and let the pain out. When he means to hide something, it's not found. He can handle it. It's a part of him now, and it's going to stay that way.

He can handle this. Can handle the dreams and the guilt, and whatever the hell this thing on his back is; he can handle that, too. Nothing's been able to keep him down and out for long, and he can handle this. But not if Sam starts poking and prodding at things that are better left alone. Unsaid.

He's seen too much of this world, knows too much, and he's tired in ways that can't be put into words. Sam needs to stop trying to make him.

The pain hits him like a freight train, without warning or preamble; just a lightning rod shearing his temple. Then he hears the voices.

_"And if the…finds the book? Then what?"_

_"We don't…kind of…book..."_

_"…powerful and dangerous…enough!"_

The conversation is hushed and serious, but still not entirely clear, like someone's been messing the radio dials, and Dean can't make out the face of either of the men.

The vision's gone as quickly as it came on, like a snapped rubber band.

He slumps against the counter on his left arm, gripping the edge of the laminate with his right hand. He swallows roughly, lays his forehead against his arm and waits for the fiery ache in his back to recede and the world to right itself.

Dean straightens and turns off the water, but stays in the small bathroom until the spots clear and he's convinced himself he's not going to vomit.

Until the light in the other room turns off, and he can trust that Sam will be asleep when he comes out. Or will at least be pretending.

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> He glances at the kitchen and sips from his glass of iced tea. ICED TEA.
> 
> Sam wasn't getting his pillows back.
> 
> Wolf Creek Lodge
> 
> Sam straightened his spine with a crack as his mind slowly and sleepily worked its way through what he was hearing.
> 
> When he means to hide something, it's not found.
> 
> He's seen too much of this world, knows too much, and he's tired in ways that can't be put into words.
> 
> ************************************************************* 
> 
> I addressed a comment a while ago on FF.net regarding the timeline of this story, and how exactly it fits snugly between 11.03 and 11.04. And as the story moves into the second arc of what will be eventually be five main arcs, I want to just take a second and make sure I explain this the best I can, as it might start to be an issue for some other canon-driven fans/readers. (Believe me, I am also one of these.) This IS definitely a conversation I had with my Master Plotter as she was helping me nail down how this story was going to go. There's no specific passage of time laid out between the two episodes, and what we ARE given is that Dean has cabin fever and is still sporting a faint black eye, and that Cas needs "time to heal." These are all things that will match up with the end of this story, and I hope by the time I get there, it will feel like a smooth transition.


	9. Chapter Eight

Sam's seen his brother in nearly every incarnation – at his best and at his whiskey-slugging, punch-throwing rock-bottom – and he knows the man pretty damn well. Better than he's ever been given credit for, surely, and better than Dean would like, certainly. Better than the stubborn, secretive jackass will ever admit to, _definitely._

So Sam knows that despite the events of the previous night – the obvious misery of Dean's nightmare and the horribly familiar whispers Sam had overheard and the reverberating slam of the door that closed between them – the morning won't be the least bit uncomfortable, because Dean won't allow it to be. Any awkwardness between them would not only serve as an acknowledgement of his brother's vulnerability, but provide an opening for ongoing conversation. And God knows, they can't have that. Dean's always employed a sort of out of sight, out of mind approach to getting from one awful day to the next, and while it might not be healthy, it does seem to work for him. Most of the time.

Sam wakes first, but doesn't drag himself out of bed until his brother works his way back to the land of the living, plays the whole thing off with a loud yawn and an exaggerated stretch of his arms above his head, like he wasn't waiting. Like he didn't see. Like he wasn't trying to catch another unguarded glimpse of what's been tormenting Dean without his knowing about it.

Dean's a bit bleary-eyed as they exchange "morning's," and while he's in the shower Sam goes down to the shop on the corner for coffee and doughnuts, like he used to do in their no-tell motel days. When his brother steps out of the bathroom, in a black t-shirt and jeans and still scuffing a towel over his hair, he blinks at the spread on the table.

"What's all this? M'I dyin' or something?"

He means for it to sting, and it does. Dean is a walking contradiction, the only person Sam knows who can both mean, _if you're gonna say something, say it now, because I'm not doin' this dance all day,_ and _don't you dare start._ The sheer volume of looming uncertainty surrounding his brother's current predicament weighs on Sam like he's been tethered to an anchor and tossed into the deep end. He can hardly draw a deep breath, let alone form a coherent thought, or the sort of response Dean's daring him to voice.

"Nope," he returns. "It's just breakfast." Sam forces a tone of disinterest into his voice and sips his coffee, goes back to scanning the morning's news on his tablet.

On his periphery, Dean tosses the damp towel to the rumpled covers of his bed and makes a predictable beeline for the caffeine. As he leans over the table to snag the second to-go cup, Sam catches a glimpse of the topmost part of the dark ink on his brother's back, peeking out from the collar of his t-shirt, and a chill drops down his spine. They can feign disinterest, and play out of sight, out of mind all they want, but that thing's not going away on its own.

Dean raises his free hand to rub at the spot as he steps back to sit on the edge of his bed, jerks his neck to produce a loud _crack._

As far as Sam knows, Dean didn't suffer any other nightmares through the course of the night, or he simply suffered them silently. Whatever the case, he certainly doesn't look like he slept well. Or at all, actually. Sam frowns at his brother's ghostly pallor, the dark smudges under his eyes.

There's been no evidence that this tattoo on him is doing anything other than giving him a few indecipherable visions, and while Sam knows that those are no picnic, he's also got enough experience to expect a fairly short recovery time. It's been more than twenty-four hours since the last one struck, yet Dean looks worse than he did the night before, run-down and gray. Sam credits the mounting stress, the questions that are piling on faster than he can dig up answers.

Whatever the reason may be, Sam doesn't like this look about his brother. Not the pallor or the lines of pain, or the discouraged drop of Dean's shoulders. Not the way he uncharacteristically and fitfully dozes against the passenger door through most of the trip. It all leaves a hard, anxious knot in Sam's gut, one that has him putting a little more pressure on the accelerator the rest of the way to Louisiana, more eager than ever to remove this tattoo.

He's still stiff from the previous night's less-than-comfortable sleeping arrangements, and when he ducks his head to climb out of the car in Baton Rouge, the _creak_ in his neck nearly matches the one that sings out from the Impala's doors as they swing shut. Across the wide roof, Dean drops his chin and chuckles quietly, and Sam lets his brother have this one. There hasn't been much opportunity to laugh lately, and he'll take it where he can get it. Even if it's at his own expense.

They aren't getting the benefit of streetlamps this far down the narrow road on the outskirts of the trailer park, but Sam doesn't need the light to see his brother looking tired and white beneath the cover of his laugh. Curiously, and worryingly, drained, though they haven't done anything all day but sit in the car, and he slept most of the way.

It's a mild evening, but Dean crams his hands deep into the pockets of his coat as he turns his attention to the small, rusted-over trailer, squinting in the waning daylight and leaning against the side of the Impala. "So this is the place?"

Sam double-checks the address, matches the house number on his notes with that of the rickety mailbox at the end of a short gravel drive. "Yeah." He jerks his chin in the direction of the trailer in question. "Come on."

Dean, as always, opts for the path less traveled and bypasses the walkway entirely, chooses to cut through the tiny lawn instead. His boot skids across a slick patch and he raises his foot to find the heel coated in what is _hopefully_ mud and not the fresh feces of some feral neighborhood animal, and makes a disgusted face. "Sam. How could this guy possibly live here? This place looks like a – a hobbit's hovel."

Sam quirks an eyebrow, and can't stop the smile that lifts his lips. "How would you know that?"

"Shut up."

All jokes aside, the trailer is in a sorry state, with a sagging roof and rust-eaten holes along the corrugated bottom, and in his gut, Sam feels the same tug of doubt that's evident in his brother's voice. They haven't had the chance to encounter many spellcasting members of the Men of Letters, but the ones they have dug up have been undeniably looney tunes. One lived in a fanciful, sprawling compound warded with magic to the point it was hidden from the naked eye, and the other split his soul into two parts and ran off to Oz. This guy, Duncan, wasn't ever a true member, but this place still seems horribly low-brow in comparison to Magnus' secret mansion, and he feels that pit of worry open up even more, thinking that they may have made this drive for nothing.

They reach the narrow, makeshift cinderblock stoop to find it bedecked with a line of small and colorfully painted flowerpots, seemingly full of soil but plantless, and a faded pink plastic flamingo jutting from the edge of the walkway.

Dean rolls his eyes and points to the tacky decoration. "Seriously, Sam. What sort of powerful wizard – or whatever the hell – has one of _these_ in his lawn?" he asks in a mocking tone of voice.

Sam grips his brother's sleeve, impatiently propelling him forward. "We're not here for the flamingo, Dean. Come on."

The porch overhang looks to be little more than a tattered golf umbrella supported by two IV pole-thin aluminum railings stuck precariously into the cinderblock steps Sam's climbing up onto, and his brave, fearless big brother shakes his head vigorously as he's motioned up onto the step.

"Nuh uh, man. I'm not tempting fate like that. She almost blew us up last time." Dean waves a hand in front of himself for emphasis. "You're doing great."

Sam stares back at him a long moment, mouth open and fist poised to knock on the screened door of the trailer. Before he can muster up a proper retort, the front door whips open, and his attention is drawn away from his brother.

On the other side of the screen stands a white-haired man with cartoonishly-thick glasses, who looks old enough to have one foot in the grave – not that the Winchesters are fit to throw stones in that particular area. The top of the old man's head comes roughly to Sam's shoulder, and beneath an ill-fitting cardigan sweater, his body is thick yet sagging in a recognizable way; a once strong and muscular man who's been beat to hell by the life he's led, a life too hard for his aging body to keep up with.

"Help you, gentlemen?" he asks, in a voice much stronger than his face and body would suggest.

"Yes, sir, hi," Sam opens, with his widest and best smile. Dean stays behind him, hunched and silent in the background. "We're looking for Gerald Duncan?"

The man is visibly taken aback, his eyes widening. "Now, that's a name I haven't heard in…who's looking for him?" His gaze narrows and he pops open the screened door, just enough for Sam to get the message.

"Right, sorry." Sam hops carefully down from the stoop and motions to himself and his brother in turn. "I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean." The man seems unmoved by Sam's most sincere of voices, and he adds a little flourish to the truth, in hopes of gaining his trust. "We found your name in some documents we inherited from our father. From our, uh, grandfather."

"Winchester," the older man says thoughtfully, bringing up an age-spotted hand to rub at his cheek. "Not…not _Henry._ "

"You knew him?" Dean speaks up.

The man shakes his head, a faraway look in his dark eyes. "Only of him. I never had the pleasure."

"Yeah, neither did we," Sam lies smoothly, pulling his eyebrows together and dipping the lure in the water, fishing for sympathy.

Duncan pulls off his glasses, rubs at an eye. "Well, all right then. Don't just stand there, boys." He pushes open the screened door again, in a much more welcoming manner. "Come in, come in."

Sam meets his brother's eyes before hopping quickly into the trailer, finds Dean looking somewhat sour and dark. It's no question why, really, when this entire trip is about him; the icing on the cake of a really crappy stretch of days. His brother rolls his eyes at the attention and follows with a swift yet uncharacteristically ungraceful jump up of his own, and the entire structure creaks and sways from their added weight.

Dean jabs an elbow into his ribs and opens his mouth, but Sam beats him to it. "Maybe lay off the cheeseburgers," he stage-whispers over his shoulder.

"Bitch," Dean returns under his breath.

The inside of the trailer is a shock, after seeing the exterior. It's cramped with oversized, outdated furniture, and dim in an almost homey sort of way, lit with thick-shaded floor and table lamps. A heavy wooden table and chairs are pressed against the wall opposite the door, its legs polished and ornately carved, and a wide, aged and tarnished mirror hangs above. Sam would say it almost looks as though the man attempted to cram a larger than life existence into an insanely small space, refusing to let any of his former possessions go.

Not _any_ of them.

Dean meets his gaze, raises his eyebrows and mouths, _hoarder._

Sam huffs quietly to himself, can't argue. The man looks to have enough books to put even Bobby Singer to shame; weighty, dusty tomes stacked on the table, the sofa, the L-shaped kitchen counter. There's very little room left to move about the home, and Sam finds himself having to share a tight corner with a floor lamp just to allow Dean into the room.

"Dude," Dean says under his breath as he passes. "Is it just me, or are you getting some major déjà vu vibes?"

"Yeah, it's not just you," Sam whispers back.

Dean squirms, shifting his weight until he maneuvers himself into a space where no bit of the gaudy décor is touching his arms or legs. He tilts his head, straining to see farther into the trailer, down the narrow hall across from the kitchen. "You don't, like, have any kind of freaky, supernatural zoo hidden back there, do you?"

"Excuse me?"

Dean sniffs, rubs at his nose. "Allergic to cats," he covers, stiffly and unconvincingly.

Sam rolls his eyes, squints and peruses the walls. Every available inch of vertical space is taken up with crooked wooden shelving crowded with various jars and…

"Are those curse boxes?" he asks, pointing to a particularly concerning section of one shelf.

"Mmm." Duncan nods. "Indeed they are." He removes his thick glasses once more, cleans them on a handkerchief as he peers up at them, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Exactly what line of work are you boys in?"

"We're hunters," Dean says, trailing his fingers along a stack of books just inside the door. He makes a face, wipes dust along the thigh of his jeans and crosses his arms.

"Ah." The old man nods solemnly, a disapproving twist to his lips. "Your grandfather would be rolling in his grave, to hear such a thing."

Sam frowns and crosses his arms defensively, matching his brother's posture. "I think he'd come around to our way of thinking."

Duncan smiles. "Didn't mean any offense, son." He returns his glasses to his face, lifts a plain porcelain mug from the table and takes a sip. "So, what is it that I can I do for you boys?"

"We're looking for information," Sam mutters distractedly, eyes roaming the shelves. "About a spell. From what we, uh, read…that's sort of your area of expertise."

"Ah, well, it's true that I know a little about a lot of things, and a great deal about a few more." The man returns the mug to the tabletop and gives Sam his full attention. "Just what might this mysterious spell be?"

Dean certainly isn't offering any information, or being any help whatsoever, actually. He just stands there, motionless and not speaking, giving the interior of the trailer a sneer. He detests being the center of attention almost more than anything, and Sam's not entirely convinced his big brother wouldn't just stand there silently and hopelessly in the middle of the room until this tattoo just _fell_ off of him.

Sam digs his cell phone out of his pocket, thumbs through the motions of bringing up that first photo he took of the markings on his brother. He swallows, hands the phone off to Duncan. "This kind."

Duncan takes the phone and stares down at the screen, his expression passive and unchanging.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Sam prods, eyes darting to his silent brother.

"In whole, never," Duncan says, voice slightly…awed, and it causes a sharp dip in Sam's spirits. "But in pieces…" His eyes whip up sharply, pinned on Dean. "This is you, yes? This mark…you're the one who bears it."

There are so many words in that sentence that twist Sam's stomach, revisiting a fear he thought for sure he'd left in the rearview mirror, _weeks_ ago. "How did you know that?"

The old man cocks his head, and his severe expression melts into a warmer smile as he returns the phone to Sam. "The haircut. Not everything is magic, young man. Some things are just common sense."

"Right." Sam crams the cell phone back into his pocket, releases a long, tense breath. "So there are parts of the tattoo you recognize? Some of the symbols?"

"Perhaps," Duncan replies, nodding. "But I'd need to see the actual markings to be certain."

"Yeah. My, uh, brother…" Sam's eyes shift to Dean and back. "He got whammied with something a few days ago, left him pretty out of it. And now he's having visions, of…" He frowns, wary of disclosing too much information, despite the fact they're basically clueless. "Well, we're not quite sure about that part."

Still silent, Dean drops his gaze to the floor, scuffs his boot heel against the short carpeting.

"Visions, eh? Interesting." The older man draws out the word as he rubs at his chin, then claps his hands together. "Well, let's take a look at this thing, then."

Sam tugs at Dean's jacket sleeve, trying to spin him around, to get him to step forward, to do _anything_ to help himself here. But Dean's got a thing about putting his back to people – especially strangers – and he wrenches free of Sam's grasp, takes a big step to the side and collides with the arm of the sofa.

"You can't just use the picture?" he asks, eyes narrowed warily at the old man.

"I could use the image for a translation, or perhaps even an origin of the spell, sure," Duncan says, in a matter-of-fact way that puts Sam on edge. "But to really get into the guts of this type of spellwork? No, my boy, I'm afraid something like that is a little more hands-on."

Sam raises his eyebrows at his brother. "Dean, you want the thing off or not?"

Dean rolls his eyes, and jerks his jacket off of his shoulders with a bit more force than is necessary. He draws out one of the wooden chairs and lays the coat over the back, and his dark red button-down soon follows. Ridding himself of his t-shirt brings forth more than one wince and a few muttered curses, and Sam averts his gaze at the sight of the healing, yellowing bruising stretching the length of his brother's left side. Cursed Castiel certainly spared no expense when it came to beating the tar out of Dean.

Duncan's no tall man, and Dean sinks cautiously into the chair to put the tattoo – and more importantly and concerningly, his back – at the man's eye level. He shoots Sam a look before he turns, one that says, _watch him._

Sam wishes he could fault his brother for his paranoia, but this is their life. There's no question they have each other's backs, but categorical trust isn't exactly a courtesy extended to others.

Dean rotates slowly in the chair and his eyes go immediately to the wide, tarnished mirror on the wall above the table, keeping tabs on the room, on Duncan and on Sam, who takes a dutiful step to the left, putting himself fully in his brother's eye line.

The old man moves as well, to stand behind Dean, and leans over him.

"When did this first appear?"

"Three nights ago," Sam supplies tightly, returning his arms to their defensively, nervously crossed position and shifting his weight.

"Mmm." Duncan makes a surprised, excited noise low in his throat, and the hair on the back of Sam's neck stands at attention as the old man's hands ghost over his brother's skin, still not quite touching.

Dean visibly tenses, folding forward over the edge of the table, away from the man.

"What is it?" Sam prompts.

"Well, it's no tattoo, I can tell you that much for certain." Duncan raises his chin, locks eyes with Sam's surprised gaze. "There's deep spellwork here, but this, this has been drawn onto your brother. Bound by blood."

"Bound by what now?" Dean speaks up, wide-eyed and twisting his neck to face Sam, who can only shrug helplessly.

"This Enochian sigil here," he says, pressing a finger against Dean's back. His brother flinches at the touch, clenches his jaw and drops a fist to thump against the tabletop. "That's what is calling forth these so-called visions."

"Yeah," Sam says tightly, nodding. "We already got that much."

Duncan's eyes narrow as he straightens and turns to Sam. "You can read Enochian?"

"We have a friend who can," Dean supplies quickly, voice tight and uncomfortable. The older man is standing awfully close, and Dean _really_ doesn't like people touching him.

The old man turns his attention back to the tattoo. "Whoever did this, they want something specific. Something that you and yours have had their eyes and hands on. Your blood created the connection, and they're using these visions to find it."

"Okay, just – just _stop_ ," Dean says tightly. "Just _wait_ a damn minute." He spins in his chair so violently he nearly knocks the man to the floor. His eyes find Sam's, wide and screaming _what the fuck, dude?_ "What _blood?_ I think I'd notice if I was missing enough blood to paint this damn thing on my back."

Duncan raises a white eyebrow. "The past few days, have you happened to find any cuts or nicks you don't remember acquiring?"

" _No._ " A muscle in Dean's jaw jumps, but it's not the one that says he's lying. Just the one that says he's scared shitless.

"Mmm." The man nods slowly. "It's likely then, that it was drawn directly from a vein or artery. They clearly know what they're doing."

" _Who?_ " Dean bites off, fidgeting in his seat and visibly paling at Duncan's words. He's trying not to move, not to give anything away, but Sam sees his brother's fingers trail faintly along the inside crook of his left elbow, his eyebrows worming in confusion.

The old man frowns. "That's not clear." He reaches out, grips Dean's shoulder and pushes, turning him back around. "And how long ago was it that you had your last vision?"

"Two nights ago," Sam answers quickly.

Dean sniffs guiltily, ducks his chin and taps his fingers against the tabletop.

Sam frowns, knowing full-well what each and every one of those tells means. "Dean?"

His brother raises that nervous hand to rub at the back of his bothersome neck, but drops it back to the table. "It wasn't quite, uh…it was…it was last night."

Sam recoils, feeling betrayed and emotionally slapped. His mind goes into overdrive, replaying the events of the previous night, what happened before and after the obvious stress of the nightmare. Dean had been in the bathroom for a while, but that's not anything out of the ordinary; there aren't a lot of places to hide from your brother in a motel room the size of a utility closet. "What do you mean it was _last night?_ " Saves the profanity for his thoughts, for later.

Dean looks up, meets his eyes for only a blink before dropping his gaze. There's some degree of understanding there; for Sam's frustration, but there's no apology.

The unspoken exchange goes unnoticed by Duncan, who continues to peer down his long nose at the tattoo, and Dean tenses under multiple types of scrutiny. "Are we done?"

"Ah," the man says in response, one word but stretched across the time it would take to speak several.

 _Yeah, that's not creepy at all_ , Sam thinks.

Dean seems to agree. He tries to move away but the man's white, strong hand keeps him pinned in place. He raises his eyes, watching Duncan's reflection in the tarnished mirror on the wall.

The old man stares for a length of time that no doubt makes Dean feel uncomfortable, because it sure as hell leaves Sam's skin crawling.

"Can you recall any details from any of your visions?"

"Is that important?" Dean snaps. "I thought we were talking about getting rid of the fuckin' thing. I'm not lookin' to write a book about it or anything."

Duncan raises an eyebrow. "It doesn't hurt to ask. And I don't imagine you boys, you…hunters, are going to forget this was done just because the marks are gone." He says the word "hunters" like it's a filthy one.

Sam clenches his jaw. "Damn right we won't."

The man nods knowingly. "Then perhaps we can figure out where – and more importantly _who_ – this came from."

It takes an encouraging jerk of the chin from Sam before his big brother plunks an elbow on the table and drops his forehead into his hand. Dean closes his eyes and rubs at his temples. "It was…two guys. And they were…they were talking."

"What were they talking about?"

"There was a book." Dean squeezes his eyes shut tighter as he thinks. "Some…I dunno – a powerful book." He opens his eyes, raises his head. "Whatever it was, they were worried about it gettin' into the wrong hands."

 _What the hell? What book?_ Sam thinks wildly, just about at his wit's end with spells and spellbooks and things being branded on his brother.

Duncan rubs at his chin, focused intently on what Dean's saying. "Anything else?"

Dean swallows and shakes his head, looking pained. "No. That's, uh, that's it."

"Hmm. It's not much." The old man turns his attention back to the markings. "Any spell, even one as complicated as this, would fade eventually. But this," Duncan says, jabbing a finger at a particular sigil that neither Sam nor Cas had recognized. "This here is the key to why this one is lingering."

Sam swallows. "What is it?"

"This symbol is a mark of the spell's power source, hinting at where the energy's coming from to produce these visions." The man's hand tightens around Dean's shoulder. "It's likely that your visions are increasing in intensity, but I have a suspicion that you, my boy, are weakening."

Dean's eyes snap automatically and guiltily to his brother, only to drop away quickly.

Sam sucks in a breath, thinking back once more on how terrible Dean had looked in the morning, the way he'd let Sam behind the wheel without much of a fight, and how he slept the majority of the drive. "Dean?"

It takes a moment, but Dean shrugs, and won't even meet Sam's eyes in the damned mirror now. And that's as good an answer as anything.

Everything they've been through over the years, the cyclical way they've fallen into withholding information from each other – Sam's not at all surprised that his brother still refuses to admit what's so painfully obvious. But in the end, he figures it's a moot point, because the damn thing has to go, regardless of _anything_ they've learned here. "What can we do?" he asks, returning his focus to the old man.

"Your brother will only continue to grow weaker, I fear, unless you solve the riddle of these visions."

Sam takes a step forward, jerks his head. "Are you telling us that there's nothing you can do to remove it?"

The man raises a gnarled finger, wags it once, ominously. "I never said such a thing. I _can_ help you in undoing this spell."

"Great," Sam says, too quickly and eagerly. Foolishly, without waiting for the hook.

The old man leans over his brother and Dean cringes, pushes forward against the edge of the table until the rounded wood is pressing against his ribcage.

"I can help you," Duncan repeats, a bit sing-songy.

Sam's got _really_ good instincts, and he doesn't at all like the mischievous twinkle that's taken up residence in the older man's eyes.

"For a price."

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> "We're not here to hunt the flamingo, Dean."
> 
> ...because Dean doesn't like people touching him.


	10. Chapter Nine

"What time is it?"

Sam catches his brother with what's left of his third beer halfway to his lips. Dean switches hands, brings up his left wrist and squints at his watch. "Quarter to twelve."

They've been in New Orleans since early afternoon and here at the Hi Tide Bar and Grill since nine, forgoing all of the traditional activities that would usually do well to entice his brother in favor of camping out in this little shack of an establishment that's well off the beaten path. The restaurant is dim and uncrowded, and they're sprawled with strategic laziness in a booth on the southern wall, beneath a stretch of wide windows, the glass streaky from the salty spray of the ocean crashing against the nearby shore. Just a pair of travelers drinking in the experience, weekend warriors, buddies catching up before heading back to their boring, nine-to-five lives. Across the narrow channel of water and accompanying docks, the bricked silhouette of empty, abandoned Fort Macomb is faintly visible beneath a pale wash of moonlight. Gathered from a few scant glances through the window, a chain link fence seems to be the extent of the property's security. There are no lights along the perimeter, and don't appear to be any guards.

Between them, a pile of loaded wedge-cut fries sits, barely touched and long forgotten. The plate is beginning to produce a smell that's decidedly unappetizing, and the cheese has congealed, gone shiny and hard on top. Sam stares down at the plate, which he'd ordered more as a lure than from his own desire for greasy junk food, because Dean had turned down both lunch _and_ dinner, and he doesn't think his brother's eaten a proper meal in days. He clears his throat and scraps any thought of subtlety, nudges the plate with the backs of his fingers.

It's food, and it's in his face, so Dean can't really help himself, drops his arm from the back of the booth seat and picks at a few of the fries. But he doesn't take a bite, just wipes his hands against his jeans and shoots another furtive glance out of the window.

Sam really wishes his big brother would eat something, maybe get back some color, but he swallows the urge to put a voice to the thought. Dean seems to have built up an immunity to concern, especially over the past couple of weeks, and would likely react like Sam was nagging or attacking him instead of caring. So instead he asks, "you think this looks suspicious?"

"Probably," Dean returns, draining his drink. His movements are tense and stiff as he shifts in his seat and lets the bottle _thunk_ atop the table. He looks sore, and tired, as he jerks his chin at his brother's second beer, the bottle still mostly full and sweating in Sam's hands. "Probably look less suspicious if you quit playing with that and fuckin' drink it."

"Right." Sam takes a long drink, the beer warm and fizzy against his tongue. He narrows his eyes as Dean motions the waitress over. They're on a job – sort of – but he's not _worried._ Not yet. His brother can hold his beer like a pro, and he hasn't flipped the whiskey switch, though Sam can't argue that he's got more than enough reason to.

"Get you boys another round?" The waitress glowers down at them, and asks like she's _daring_ them to order something more.

It's nearing closing time and they're some of the restaurant's last patrons. They've become irritating, keeping her here, cutting into whatever plans she may have had for the night. Even so, Sam's not worried about leaving much of an impression on the woman, because the night's stakes are too high to risk drawing attention to themselves. Dean might not be at the top of his game, but Sam trusts that tonight will go off without a hitch.

"That'd be great," Dean responds, seemingly oblivious to the stony look and tone. "And a couple shots? Whiskey."

Sam frowns. "Not for me, thanks."

Dean rubs at his eyebrow, sighs his most put-upon sigh. "Yes for him, thanks."

Sam works his jaw, forces out a reluctant, "yeah, sounds good."

"All done here?" Cocking a brow in the direction of the abandoned fries, and not light on the sarcasm. At Sam's nod, she scoops up the plate and stomps away.

Sam fidgets in his seat and taps his fingertips on the water-stained tabletop, discovers he can't bite his tongue any longer. "You need to eat something."

Dean lets out a slow, annoyed breath, but doesn't respond.

"Dean," he persists, "you should – "

"M'not hungry, Sam."

_I didn't ask_ , Sam wants to snap. The arguments builds in his chest, burning, itching to escape. These particular words he manages to keep in check, but the concern runs rampant, gaining momentum. His brother's color is _appalling_ , and frightening, nearly gray under the restaurant's cheap, unforgiving lighting. There are bags beneath and exaggerated lines cutting the corners of his eyes, and he seems small in the booth across from Sam, shoulders hunched and folded in, clearly internalizing his pain and discomfort.

And Sam's got more than enough experience to know, that way lies horrible, achingly familiar dangers.

"I think the kitchen's still open," he says, much too loudly, like his vocal chords are staging a rebellion against his better judgment. "I can order something else – "

"I'm _fine_ , Sam," Dean seethes through his teeth. "Knock it off."

"Okay," he relents, at a much more reasonable volume. "Okay."

They sit quietly, eyes pointed in opposite directions, until the waitress returns with their drinks.

Dean wrests the shot from her hand and knocks it back immediately, chases it with a pull from the beer. He sets the bottle aside and scrubs at his face with both hands. "Sam, what the hell are we doing here?"

"We're helping you," Sam answers, hearing the forced confidence, the utter _lameness_ , in his own response.

His brother lays his arms down on the wood, levels a bright-eyed stare across the table. "Are we?"

Sam swallows, narrows his eyes. "Yes."

************************************************************

_"I can help you. For a price."_

_Sam's gut reaction, his initial, thoroughly exhausted thought is_ , name it. _He can't watch this happen, not again._

_The thing with the Mark of Cain happened slowly, and then all of a sudden. Dean had been surly and distant and aggressive for months, before graduating to bloodthirsty and scary, seemingly overnight._

_The night Charlie died._

_He can't let this…_ thing _run its course, can't watch his brother embark upon another slow trek toward death. Sam_ won't _, and so his first thoughts are_ name it, _and_ whatever it takes.

_And while Duncan might not know it, he_ knows _it. They played this sloppy from the jump, showed their hand too soon, and the old man got a big whiff of Sam's desperation._

_Dean, on the other hand, recoils at the man's words, jerks back like he's been struck. He looks like a cornered animal, feral and frightened. Dangerous. "What price?" he demands, shoving up from his seat at the table and grabbing his discarded shirt._

_There's an odd, nervous tremor in his big brother's voice, and Sam frowns hearing it._

_Dean drops his eyes away, moving quickly to cover the shake and even quicker to escape Duncan's reach. He just_ moves. _"You think we've got money?" Flustered and anxious to get away, he trips into a knee-high stack of heavy books as he's tugging the t-shirt over his head._

_Sam catches him, steadies his brother with a hand against his chest and feels Dean's heart hammering madly beneath his fingertips. Once his brother's regained enough of his composure that only the wild look in his eyes remains, Sam grips his shoulder and gives him a firm shake. "Let's just…hear the man out, okay?" He can't really see that they have any other choice._

_Dean frowns and swallows audibly, then nods tightly, signaling a willingness to trust Sam's instincts in this instance. They turn to face the old man as a united front._

_"We're listening," Sam says. "So what exactly is it that you want from us?"_

_The corner of Duncan's mouth lifts. "The trade I'm proposing doesn't include anything you_ have, _but rather, what you can get for me."_

_Dean sighs and folds his arms across his chest, looking white and weary and worrisome. "I'm not really in the mood for games, okay?" Despite standing with Sam, and trusting Sam, he sounds ready to walk, to cut their losses and search out another avenue. "So why don't you just tell us what it is you want."_

_"Very well." Duncan wrings from the moment all the drama he can, shuffles achingly slowly over the counter and sips from his mug. "Are you boys familiar with Fort Macomb?"_

_Sam quickly scours his mental catalog and shakes his head. "No."_

_"No?" Dean turns to him, eyebrows drawn together in surprise. "Really?" He uncrosses his arms, waves a vague hand. "Over in, uh, NOLA, right? Occupied by both sides during the Civil War?" At Duncan's nod, he smirks without any zip behind it, bumps Sam with his elbow. "Guess you don't know everything."_

_Sam purses his lips, returns his attention to the old man. "What about it?"_

_Despite their situation and surroundings, Dean seems pleased with himself, and then immediately on the heels of it, incredibly drained. His gaze roams the trailer for a surface to lean against, and he settles for a narrow bit of unadorned wall next to the door._

_"Buried in the western point of the fort's ruins," Duncan obliges, "is an extremely rare, extremely potent protection charm, placed there after the Union reclaimed control. This charm is…uniquely warded, and is rumored to have been disguised to look like any ordinary penny."_

_The old man has a storyteller's cadence, and Sam finds himself leaning in, in spite of himself._

_Dean breaks the moment with a loud, derisive snort. "That's nice, but we didn't come all this way for a history lesson." He cocks his head toward Sam. "Although, sounds like you might need one, little brother."_

_Sam frowns, but doesn't say anything. Doesn't shush his brother's impatience, and certainly doesn't rise to the half-hearted jibe._

_Duncan remains silent, nonplussed. Once he's sure he once more has their full attention, he nods solemnly. "The coin is to be my payment."_

_Sam can't really say whether it's the implications of what the man's proposing or simply the word "payment" that does it, but he's thrown for a loop, and this whole thing suddenly feels as dangerous as a crossroads deal. Those initial, eager thoughts of his are lost in a dull roar of panic, and hesitance. He holds up a hand. "Wait a second – "_

_"You want us to – to_ steal _some crappy old penny for you?" Dean cuts in, eyes wide and incredulous as he vaults forward from his lean against the wall._

_"Yes," Duncan replies, simply and with a small smile._

_Dean gapes wordlessly a moment, then turns to his brother for help. "Sam."_

_"He's right, sir," Sam obliges, forcing a veneer of politeness over his unease. "That's not really what we – I mean, we don't usually – "_

_"Oh, come now." The old man's smile dissolves as he waves a dismissive, almost annoyed hand. "Two young, strapping gentlemen such as yourselves? It will be as simple as a stroll through the park."_

_"Okay," Dean says, his tone heavy with exhaustion and a fair amount of impatience. "So how the_ hell _do you know all this?"_

_In response, a bark of laughter that doesn't sound particularly amused, or kind. Duncan lifts an arm, encompassing the long row of dusty, crowded shelving along the wall. "These books aren't here for show, and those cursed boxes aren't for decoration. I…" He pauses, seems to select his next words carefully. "Collect charms and charmed objects. I discovered the coin's whereabouts some time ago, using a simple location spell. I'm quite adept."_

_"Okay," Dean repeats, drawing out the word. His eyes, wide with confusion and possibly irritation, dart to Sam. "Uh, all due respect here, but New Orleans ain't that far. Why haven't you gotten it for yourself?"_

_Another chuckle, this one road-worn and weary. "I'm afraid, at my age and condition, that I am incapable of pulling off such a heist."_

_Sam catches the tilt of Dean's head, a sure sign that he's now seriously considering the offer, likely spurred by the word_ heist. _His big brother never has been one to turn down a challenge of this nature, and Sam has a flash of clarity as bright and clear as the mischievous twinkle growing in Dean's eyes – if their positions were reversed, his brother would have already shaken hands. They'd be in the car by now, eating asphalt and burning the midnight oil._

_And that revelation gives Sam pause, makes him_ think, _because it's exactly the sort of mistake the Winchesters just can't seem to stop making._

_He's apparently thinking far too loudly, because Duncan narrows his eyes at Sam, raises his chin appraisingly._

_"Mr. Winchester," he says in a low, dangerous voice. "This spell_ will _kill your brother. Not today, or tomorrow, but eventually, and likely whether or not the spellcaster gets what he's after." He steps forward, palms held out. "Now, I can help you, and I_ will, _but only if you do this for me in exchange."_

_Sam doesn't look at his brother; he_ won't. _Making this kind of decision out of desperation is usually how one of them ends up dead. But Duncan's words bounce around in his head, tripping all sorts of delicate, emotional levers and switches he swore he'd never touch again. But if the man really can undo the spell that's plaguing Dean, the ends just might justify the means. And this old coot was once a trusted associate of the Men of Letters, and that's nothing to scoff at._

_But there are too many variables, too many ways this whole thing could go horribly wrong, and it's high time the Winchesters get paid up front._

_Duncan senses his hesitation, pinpoints and attacks it._

_"And," he states loudly, bringing up a hand, "in advance."_

*************************************************************************

Sam shakes himself out of his reverie, runs a hand down his face. "What time is it?"

Dean makes a show of looking annoyed and dramatically checks his watch. "Five after twelve." He takes a long drink of his beer, shakes his wrist. "You know, you've got one of these newfangled gadgets, too."

"Right."

His brother shoots a glance out of the window. "We're really gonna do this, huh?"

"Well, right now Duncan's sort of the only game in town." Not that Sam's hesitation hasn't traveled to New Orleans with them. He'd give anything for Cas to call, right now, with another answer. But the angel is still wings-deep in attempting to trace the origin of the spell through whatever translation he can work out.

Dean raps his knuckles on the table. "I don't trust 'im."

Sam nods, but doesn't put a voice to his own hesitation. They'd be out the door in a snap, abandon this job and end up back at square one. He sips his beer, thoughts running rampant, twisted up in trails of _trust._ Their stop of Duncan's had been short, but enlightening, and not all of the revelations were positive, or helpful. In fact, it sort of feels like they're taking two steps backward for every step forward.

His brother catches him staring, frowns. "S'there something I can do for you, Sammy?"

Sam shakes his head. "It's nothing." He sighs and leans back in the booth, cheap vinyl squeaking a protest.

Dean takes another drink, eyeing him suspiciously over the bottle. He lowers the beer to _crack_ against the table and smacks his lips. "What?"

"It's _nothing_ ," Sam repeats, and lasts all of ten seconds in the staring match that ensues, before the hypocrisy of his denial sets him squirming. "So what happened to being honest with me?" he blurts, with no cool whatsoever.

Dean makes a surprised, amused noise in his throat. "What the hell are you – "

"Was he right?" Sam demands, leaning over the table. "Did you know these visions are killing you?"

His brother blinks, and – surprisingly – doesn't deny it. Of course, it'd be hard to; Dean's not that good an actor, especially with that chalk-white complexion and the dark circles framing his eyes. "Not…killing, but…I dunno, man." His face hardens, and he turns to indignation, which _isn't_ surprising. "Christ, Sam, what good would it have done you to know?"

"Dean," Sam says sternly, foot poised to stomp beneath the table, but he reins it in at the last second. "You promised."

His brother doesn't quite show the same restraint, rattles the entire table with a kick of his boot. "Shit, Sammy. You tellin' me that I know every damn thing that's goin' on with you?"

Dean's deflecting, and it's working, because all of a sudden Sam recalls black veins and visions of Hell, and telling his brother that nothing major came up while dealing with the infected in that hospital in Superior. He's got just as much a precarious relationship with the truth as Dean, and it'll be his turn in the hot seat soon enough. He doesn't answer, turns his head to glare at his reflection in the window.

Dean drags a hand down his face, flicks his gaze once more in the direction of his watch. He sniffs, swallows the last few inches of his beer and helps himself to Sam's untouched whiskey. "All right." He waves a hand at the waitress, slaps his palm on the table. "Let's do this."

*****************************************************************

Dean's girl is big and loud, but she blends seamlessly into the background on a dark night.

While paying the bill, they made a big show of asking for directions out of town and over-tipped the waitress, then moved this waiting game down the road as discretely as possible. The padlocked gate securing the condemned remains of the fort sits back from the highway, offering an adequately concealed patch of grass and gravel that's just big enough for the Impala, and offers a clear line of sight to the restaurant's parking lot.

Dean tugs at the collar of his t-shirt and wriggles uncomfortably on the bench. The windows are down and it's the middle of the night, but the air is sticky and warm, permeating the interior of the car. He shoves the sleeves of his button-down to his elbow, scuffs a sweaty palm up through his hair before thumping it against the steering wheel. He's in the driver's seat only because Sam had been generous enough to allow him to drive his _own car_ over, from the damn _parking lot._

His fidgeting draws the attention of his brother, who turns to him with a raised eyebrow.

"S'hot as hell out here, man," Dean complains.

Sam rolls his eyes, resumes squinting out of the windshield at the Hi Tide Bar and Grill, where the last of the staff – and any possible witnesses – are locking up and heading to their cars. A couple of cooks, the waitress with the attitude and one of _Dean's_ hard-earned twenties in her pocket. Not one of them spares a glance in the direction of the Impala.

They continue to wait, even after the last pair of tail lights disappears down the highway, allowing some time to ensure the area has emptied out.

The night air is thick and damp, and quiet, but for a few faint animal sounds and the muted slap of water against the nearby docks. Beside him, Sam cocks his head, listening. He's always had a thing for the water, always attached all sorts of meaning to it. Ideas like _far_ and _free_ and _away._ To Dean, water's only ever been two things: cold, and wet. Give him a stretch of dusty, open road any day.

He squirms again, but this time it's not due to the suffocating blanket of humidity. Dean can feel it building – a vision, a… _whatever._ An increasingly familiar pain blooming in the tense muscles of his back, a dull ache climbing his neck to nestle at the base of his skull. He winces, rolls his head on his shoulders.

His brother's got eyes in front, back, and all around his damn head, it seems. Sam leans forward with a sigh and a _squeak_ of the seat, pops open the glove box and digs around. He comes away with a well-used bottle of ibuprofen. "Here."

"What about it?"

Sam rattles the bottle. "Take 'em. I recognize the look."

Dean rolls his eyes, wanting to appear annoyed above needy, but the motion looses a lightning bolt that rockets from one temple to the other. He accepts the pills, dry-swallows four and hands the bottle back to his brother without looking at him.

Sam returns the pills to the glove box, narrows his gaze in the direction of the highway. Not a single car has passed since the restaurant emptied out. After another long, silent moment, he asks, "you think we're good?"

Dean blinks the blurriness of pain from his eyes, then sets them roaming the bit of visible blacktop, cuts a circuit from windshield to rearview to side mirror. All remain dark. "Mmm hmm. Looks like." He opens the door slowly in an effort to lessen the characteristic creak. On the other side of the car, Sam echoes his motions.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Dean gripes, slapping at a gnat on his forearm.

Sam hefts the bolt cutters, squints are the gate. "You know, at this point I think you're just bitching for the sake of it."

The gangly smartass is only mostly right. Dean's got…a bad feeling. About all of this. Has since they left Duncan's back in Baton Rouge. It's an unspecific feeling, but dangerous to ignore, and he knows Sammy's feeling the same hesitation. In fact, he can't help but wonder if the both of them aren't going along with this plan just to keep the other from worrying. There's certainly no shortage of stubbornness among Winchesters.

Dean's always known he would go out bloody, but he'd rather it be on his own terms, on the way he's given it a hell of a go at ending himself before. Succeeded, too. Yet here he stands, staring down another barrel.

He reaches out, grips the fence in an effort to steady himself as a wave of dizziness washes over him, perfectly synced to a bleat of pain in his already aching head.

"Dean?"

He raises his head, finds his brother staring at him with eyebrows drawn together in palpable, nearly nauseating levels of concern.

"Are you…"

"Just waitin' on you." Dean releases his white-knuckled grip on the fence and gestures impatiently toward the gate. He swats another bug from his neck. "Let's get on with it."

The fencing is adorned with the expected warnings of fines, prosecution and imprisonment for trespassers, one sign signifying the fort's addition to the historical registry in seventy-eight, and the most recent placard, declaring the property as hazardous due to damage from recent storms. The padlocked chain drops away with a _chunk_ from the bolt cutters, and jangles against the gravel.

Dean shoots a nervous glance behind them. He's no stranger to breaking and entering, but there's a world of difference between county lock-up and federal prison.

The road remains empty, but for the parked Impala, and they slip easily through the gate, make their way down the narrow road toward the ruins of the fort.

"Careful," Sam commands quietly as they maneuver around the edge of the brick wall onto the narrow shelf of ground along the water's edge, like he just can't help himself.

"You be careful," Dean shoots back, but his brother's got a point.

Low tide has left the ground a marshy mess of mud and long grass, and Dean is pretty sure they're leaving footprints. Assuming they make it out of here successfully and unseen, the break-in will surely be written off as the work of bored teenagers. It's not like there's anything to steal, not unless you know where to look.

His head thrums in time with his warily placed steps, and he's having a hard time navigating the narrow space between the water below and the crumbling brick exterior of the fort, and the ibuprofen ain't doin' _shit._

The building pound in his skull suddenly cuts to a sharp flash of searing, blinding pain, and Dean raises a ill-advised hand to his head, fucks his balance six ways from Sunday.

Sam's just far enough ahead to be completely useless as Dean's foot slips on the slick ground and shoots out from under him, hands clutching nothing but air as he hits the water with a crash.

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Dean lets out a slow, even breath, doesn't respond.
> 
> Dean frowns. "S'there something I can do for you, Sammy?"
> 
> "Dean," Sam says sternly, foot poised to stomp but he reins it in at the last second. "You promised."
> 
> Dean's always known he would end bloody, and he'd rather it be on his own terms, on the battlefield.


	11. Chapter Ten

They'd lucked out, as far as the "job" was concerned, and were poised to beat high tide by a few hours. Once the water comes raging in there won't be a chance in hell of finding the coin, and they're already racing one clock, if Duncan is to be believed and Dean's strength – his _life_ – is waning with each ensuing vision. Low tide has provided opportunity, and a narrow outcropping: a slick, rocky path along the perimeter of the fort that calls for careful steps and sure footing.

Sam hadn't spared it a thought, had assumed that even in his current predicament, his bull-headed brother was still capable of both.

At the unmistakable sound of a body striking shallow water behind him, Sam's body reacts quicker than his brain, reflexes beating out any hope of coherent thought until he can get eyes on his brother. With a blinding buzz of panic roaring in his head, he finds himself slipping down the narrow, rocky excuse for a shoreline and wading thigh-deep into the cold water before he even summons the breath to call out for Dean, and well before he finds the capacity to wonder what just happened.

"Dean!" He uses the muted white light of the moon as a guide, zeroes in on the choppy, foamy waves being created by his disoriented brother struggling to regain higher ground, no more than ten feet away. The surface beneath Sam's boots is mud and muck-slicked rock, and his foot rolls as he hurries through the water, shoots out to the side and nearly causes him to lose his balance.

Dean likewise can't seem to find his footing, fighting the tide that's wrapped him up and is threatening to tug him farther out. He coughs and splutters and slaps in vain at the water as his head slips back below.

Heart thudding painfully, Sam stretches out and hooks a hand in his brother's collar, helps him make it to his feet and then does his best to keep him there. He wastes no time in hauling Dean back in the direction of the shore, doesn't loosen his grip even when the frigid water is lapping below their knees. Not even when his brother starts sluggishly pawing at his hand and coughs out a wet "Geddoff."

When they reach dry land, Dean collapses onto his hands and knees, sucking desperately for oxygen. He spits a mouthful – or a lungful – of dirty water to the rocks.

Sam doubles over as Dean goes down, keeps one hand twisted in the collar of his brother's shirt and braces the other on his own knee. He takes a deep, settling breath and eyes Dean appraisingly. "You good?"

He's really not; that much is obvious. Visions and mysterious blood spell aside, he's soaked, freezing, and pale as the moon overhead, with deep lines etched at the corners of his eyes. Racked by full-body shivers, he rotates his head slowly and glares up at Sam. Beads of water catch the light as they slip from his chin. "Get off me," he orders hoarsely, maybe embarrassed, and shucks Sam's hand away with a jerk of his shoulder.

Sam flops to the rocks next to his brother, wincing as his knees connect with the uneven ground. He pauses a moment, works to catch his breath. Turns out it doesn't take too damn much to scare the shit out of him, not anymore. Not where his brother is concerned. As Sam's panic recedes, a familiar, gnawing feeling moves swiftly to take its place in his chest, his gut.

Guilt.

He'd gone ahead of his brother, taken over control of the situation instead of covering Dean's six. _Strike one._

Sam communicates his apology with a clap on Dean's soggy shoulder. "Smooth move, Grace."

"Shut up." Dean coughs and winces, swipes uselessly at the water on his face. He groans and moves to roll away, maybe even stand, the stubborn, impatient son of a bitch, but Sam grabs him by the elbow.

"Hey, just…just sit tight a sec, man."

Dean tries to wrench away, but can't seem to find the energy, or the strength. "Sam – "

"Sit your ass down," he orders firmly, his harsh tone fueled by adrenaline and regret.

Dean blink but complies, wordlessly settles back on the bank. Looking drawn and pained and breathing too wetly for Sam's liking, he inspects a dark mark on his elbow until his catches his brother staring, then drops his arm and squints out at the water.

Sam follows his brother's gaze. The evidence of Dean's mishap has already begun to fade away, moonlight dancing along the bobs and ebbs of calming waves. He swallows, drapes his arms over his tented knees. "What – was it another vision?" he asks, in a quiet voice that can't be heard as an accusation.

"No," Dean says, too quickly and stiffly to hold much in the way of truth. He sniffs, coughs deeply into his shoulder. "Just took a bad step."

Sam doesn't believe him, not for a second. He could write a book on the subject, could host a goddamn lecture series entitled "How Dean Winchester Lies," but he can't see how there's anything to be gained by picking that fight right now. It doesn't even matter, what Dean might have _seen_ , because if all goes according to plan, the actual content of these visions will have been curious, but ultimately irrelevant.

But the source of the visions, the cause of this, the _spellcaster_ , as Duncan put it – that son of a bitch will be hunted, and found, and made to pay for what his brother's been put through. Sam _just_ got his big brother back, a Dean he'd missed terribly, who's strong, and always laughing and giving him shit. Seeing him like this, weak and pale and struggling…it rips a hole right through a vital, already frayed part of him.

Dean rubs his forehead with a trembling hand. "Quit lookin' at me like that."

"Sorry." Sam drops his gaze, picks a bit of silt from the leg of his soaked jeans.

With a sigh, his brother sits up straighter, twists until he releases a deep _pop_ from his spine. "Okay," Dean says, shoving gingerly to his feet. "Tide's coming in. If we're gonna do this thing, let's do it."

**********************************************************************

Sam's doing that irritating thing he does, and thinking too much. He's walking in circles on the silty shore and staring at the corner of the fort like the building's about to do something surprising. The structure is in ruins, especially here, where the bricks have been mercilessly thrashed by decades of rough storms and high tides. The foundation is eroded, carried away by pounding waves, the mortar loosened around what bricks remain.

At the base of the wall is a curious formation of seven bricks, weathered and discolored at a much higher rate than the rest of the crumbling, condemned fort. The outer edge of each of the bricks is scorched, and the one at the center has a peculiar, circular sigil carved into it, one that Dean feels he should be more familiar with than he actually is. The sigil had caught Sam's eye as well, but it's been put on the backburner for the moment, as the kid trains his cell phone's flashlight along the blackened edges, where there's some sort of faint etching visible beneath the scorch marks.

His brother has yet to do anything with this development, just keeps pacing, tilting his head and studying the faded brickwork from different angles, swooping in every few minutes with the light.

Dean's still drenched, and miserably cold, and his head is fucking _pounding._ It's draining away what's left of his energy just _watching_ the fidgety nerd.

It _was_ a vision, he thinks, but that misstep – the shock of the cold water and the unforgiving rock bottom there to catch his fall – had ripped him back before he saw anything with enough clarity to really stick. If he closes his eyes and really thinks, his head screams in protest but an image comes to mind. The interior of a car, and a blurry someone on the bench next to him. A man.

Sam crouches down, leans in once more with the light. If he's having any thoughts about what he might be seeing there, he doesn't share with the class.

Tired and achy and annoyed, Dean scrubs a hand over his face and exhales loudly. "Is there something in particular you're lookin' for, Sammy?"

Sam's eyes tick up. "Just trying to get a lay of the land. Duncan said the coin was uniquely warded."

"Okay, but what does that _mean?_ "

"I don't know. That's why I'm…" Sam waves a hand, then swallows and turns back to the fort. "I don't want any surprises."

Dean cocks his head, concedes that point. The wind picks up, coming in off the water, and he suppresses a shiver, can't believe he'd thought it was _hot._ He steps forward and leans over his brother's shoulder, squints at the line of carved letters. "What is that? Latin?"

Sam nods, creeps closer to the wall. "Yeah, but I can't…" he suddenly tenses, noticeably drops his shoulder. "It's an immolation incantation."

"Say that five times fast."

"Dean." But it's not a warning, and there's no hint of annoyance in Sam's voice. He just wants to make it clear that he's not buying Dean's shtick.

And that's just as well, because Dean's too damn beat to keep it up. "What's that mean?" he asks again, and there's definitely a fair bit of aggravation on his end.

"I'm not sure. It's been altered to protect this particular area, but…I think it means that anyone who tries to remove the center brick, and probably the coin, will…"

"Be immolated?" Dean supplies woodenly.

"Yeah." Sam sits back on his heels and runs a hand down his face, grabs his chin.

Dean straightens and takes a step away, rubs at the back of his neck. "Okay. So break it."

"Dean, this warding is two hundred and fifty years old." Sam shakes his head. "I can't just _break_ it. I'm not even sure I got the translation right, and I don't at all have the knowledge or skill set to – "

"Okay, okay, I get it." Dean pats his pockets, trying to locate his cell phone, and hoping his impromptu dip in the water didn't kill it outright. "I'm gonna call Cas, see if he can – "

Sam throws a hand behind him, snaps his fingers. "W-wait a minute. I think I…" He points to the center brick. "Dean, take that brick out."

" _What?_ " Dean's jaw drops. "You JUST said that removing the brick or the coin will cause the person to, what, burst into flames?"

"I take it back." Sam hops backward, twists and hits Dean in the face with his phone's light. "Take the brick."

Dean winces away from the bright light and steps back. "You take the brick. I think I've already handled my fair share of Civil War pennies, and I like deep-fried, Sammy, but I don't wanna _be_ deep-fried."

"I can't do it, Dean," Sam insists. "You gotta do it. Stop being a baby and trust me, man."

_Low blow, Sammy, playing the 'trust' card._ "Fine." Dean rolls his head on his shoulders, shakes out his arms. "But if I burst into flames, I'm totally haunting your ass."

"Noted." Sam nods tightly as he rises and steps aside, and he looks _just_ nervous enough about this idea.

_And it's his dumbass idea._

Dean braces a hand on the wall, takes a few deep breaths and steels himself, mentally prepares as well as one can for the possibility of spontaneous combustion. His sore body protests as he settles into a crouch and stares at the bricks. He slowly reaches out a hand, squeezes his eyes shut as he presses his fingertips to the face of the center brick.

Behind him, Sam sucks in a breath.

_Thanks for the vote of confidence, dude._ But nothing happens – no flame, no spark, not even a tingle in his fingertips.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, I'm…okay." Dean can hardly believe it himself. He holds his breath and digs in with both hands, yanks the brick free of the wall in one swift motion.

He steps back quickly, gripping the marked brick in both hands. A hole had been chiseled out of the top, and the moon glints off a bit of metal tucked inside. "Okay," he says slowly, staring down at the hidden penny. "So the spell was a hoax?"

"No, it's real." Sam steps closer, hands floating around the brick, but he's careful not to actually touch. "I just had a hunch."

"You risked my life on a _hunch?_ " Dean narrows his eyes at his brother, shakes his head. "So what gives, Poindexter? Why didn't I burst into flames?"

makes a gesture like he wants Dean to turn the brick in his hands, so he complies. Once the outer side of the brick is facing his brother, Sam points at the carved sigil that Dean had noticed before. "Because of this."

Dean frowns down at the symbol. It tugs at him, but he still can't place it. "What about it?"

"It's, uh…the seal of Michael." Sam drops his hands to his sides, eyes wide and watching Dean. "I recognized it from…you know."

"Michael? Like…like _Michael_ Michael? That Michael?"

"Yeah."

"The archangel who…" _Who wanted to get his feathery ass all up in this?_ Dean shudders.

Sam nods solemnly. "Yeah."

Jaw clenched tightly, Dean digs into the hole and – without incident – wrangles the penny free, then turns and chucks the warded brick out into the water. He waits for the _crash_ , then whirls on his brother with the penny wrapped in a white-knuckled fist. "Why the fuck would anyone – "

"For protection." Sam certainly doesn't seem happy about being right. First time for everything. "He's the patron saint of warriors."

"He's the patron saint of being a pain in my ass," Dean seethes.

His brother is suddenly overcome by deep thoughts, that crease appearing between his eyebrows as he tilts his head. "That's why he let us in the door."

"Who?"

"Duncan." Sam drops his hands to his hips, shakes his head. "He said he'd been after the coin for years, and he perked right up when we told him who we were. It's wasn't because of Henry, it was because of _you._ "

Dean gapes a long moment, rehashing their meeting on the stoop of the trailer, and shuts his mouth with a painful clack when he realizes his brother is right. "Oh, I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch."

Sam sighs, shoulders slumped. "Yeah."

Dean brings up a hand, eyes darting out to where he'd tossed the brick. "So I could touch the thing because I was supposed to be Michael's vessel?"

Sam screws up his nose. "Technically, you still are."

Dean chuffs a harsh bark of laughter, looks down at the penny in his palm. "Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in." Sam doesn't respond, and the prolonged silence draws Dean's gaze upward. "What is it?"

"Nothing." Sam shakes his head, pulls that sour lemon face he makes when it's damn well not NOTHING. "It's nothing," he repeats, stacking his lies like Legos. "I just…I thought we were long past all of this vessel crap."

"We are," Dean says firmly. His head already hurts like a mother; he can't possibly entertain the alternative right now. "Those asshats are locked up tight in the cage. Don't even waste your time worrying about it." He ducks his chin. "Sam. Seriously, knock it off."

"Yeah," Sam agrees, but he still looks troubled. "Yeah, you're probably right."

Dean forces a tired smirk, tucks the wretched coin into his pocket. "I'm always right."

***************************************************************************

Charmed or not, nothing about the penny in his jeans pocket feels like it was worth all of this – not the time spent on this excursion, not knowing that dick Michael might still somehow have his wings dug in, and certainly not the fresh bruising Dean can feel blooming along his right arm and hip.

Shivering, he drags on his jacket at the car, then collapses into the passenger side in an uncoordinated tumble of aching limbs, and lays his throbbing head back against the seat. He doesn't even hear or feel Sam settling in beside him, just the sudden warm and needy weight of a giant hand on his arm.

Dean lifts his head, frowns and squints at his brother.

Sam draws his hand away, wraps it around the steering wheel. "Why don't you get some sleep?" he suggests, eyes wide with worry and questions he already knows the answers to. Maybe some he doesn't.

Dean shakes his head, regrets it immediately. "No," he says thickly, holding his neck deliberately, carefully still. "No, I'm okay."

Sam's hands tighten around the wheel, and he lets out a slow, even breath. "Dean, you…you don't look okay."

He props his elbow on the door, closes his eyes and kneads at his thrumming right temple with his fingertips. "Yeah, well, there's no accounting for taste. Just drive, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay." Spoken softer, like Sammy knows the very sound of his voice might as well be a fucking jackhammer to the skull.

There's nothing at all soothing or comforting about the sound of his baby's engine roaring to life. In fact, the initial, aggressive growl of it hits Dean rights behind the eyes, and sort of makes him want to puke. He squirms against the seatback, shoulders tight with tension and likely something more, the pain winding its way up his neck and pulsing hot at the base of his skull.

If Sam notices his discomfort, he doesn't mention it.

By the time they reach the main road, the pain in Dean's head has magnified tenfold, found a brand-new level of agony he hadn't thought existed, and he seriously contemplates asking his overreactive worrywart of a brother to find a gas station or rest stop so he can grab a bottle of water or something. They've got aspirin for days, but the thought of dry-swallowing another handful of pills leaves his throat working and stomach roiling.

Dean raises a hand with the intent to rub at that damn problematic spot at the back of his neck. Before his fingers make contact, pain rips through his skull like a fire-kissed blade shoved through his temple. He gasps and pitches forward on the seat, clutching at his head.

Before, in the bunker, the motel bathroom, the parking lot of that little dive bar, the brief glimpse that sent him careening into the water – those visions were a handshake, a greeting, a _tease_ of what he's feeling now.

Dean hears his brother shouting his name, but Sam's voice is far, far away. He blacks out, he thinks, and when he next opens his eyes he's still in the car.

Or, _a_ car. The same one as before.

Everything is fuzzy around the edges, and he knows he's in a vision, caught deeper than he's been before. He can make out some of the details of the car; the smooth, polished dashboard, the stiff feel of the leather-wrapped steering wheel, when he'd just been in the Impala's passenger seat. There's a gold band around his – no, not _his_ – left ring finger, tapping a gentle rhythm against the wheel.

He has no control over his – this – body; can't move or speak. Can only witness.

"I don't think we should be doing this." The voice vibrates in his chest and up through his throat, and it tugs at Dean's memory but it isn't his.

He can't make out the face of the man seated next to him, but his thick eyebrows waggle mischievously; a trait that seems an ingrained bit of his personality, and can make even a quiet stroll through the grounds seem as though an adventure might be lurking around every corner. It's both an appealing and off-putting peculiarity, and…Dean's head is suddenly spinning from the influx of foreign thoughts.

"Come now, Henry. Where's your sense of adventure?"

Magnus – Sinclair, who the _hell_ ever – that's the voice, the man.

And… _Henry?_

Dean's head turns of its own volition, and the reflection he sees in the rearview mirror isn't his own, but that of his grandfather.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> He's soaked, freezing, and pale as the moon, with deep lines etched at the corners of his eyes.
> 
> "Why don't you get some sleep?" Sam suggests.


	12. Chapter Eleven

Dean's being quiet, in an expectedly exhausted and pained sort of way. Keeping things to himself, obviously trying not to be a bother to his little brother, who's really starting to miss being bothered.

They're close now, Sam can feel it. Close to ending the entire, endlessly mysterious ordeal, while escaping relatively unscathed. Relatively, and on his end, anyway. As for his brother, he can only hope the events of the past few days won't result in a major setback on the rocky road back to _normal._ Whatever that may mean. Sam's no longer sure the Winchesters even have a point of reference for _normal._

He adjusts his grip on the steering wheel and, anxious, gives the Impala a little more gas.

Beside him, Dean sucks in a harsh, quick breath.

That's the only warning Sam gets that something is wrong.

His curious eyes slide sideways, find his brother looking squinty and frighteningly white.

Dean raises a trembling hand to the back of his neck, but gasps halfway through the motion. The sound turns quickly to a cry of pain as he doubles over, grabbing at his head.

Sam's fingers tighten nervously around the steering wheel. "Dean?"

His brother looses a long, low, _soul-crushing_ noise of pain, then jerks violently on the bench like he's received an electrical shock.

And Sam really, really hates that he knows _exactly_ what that looks like.

"Dean!" An ultimately pointless shout of worry and alarm, as it takes Sam all of two seconds to realize Dean isn't hearing him, his eyes squeezed shut as he keens and twitches on the seat. Sam flings out his right arm, attempting to pin his flailing brother against the seatback and keep him from cracking his head open.

When his eyes tick back up to the road, the Impala has drifted off-course, nose pointed into the next, thankfully unoccupied lane. In the headlights, the brightly painted, weed-pocked median looms mere feet away.

_Shit._

He releases Dean to grip the wheel with both hands. He overcorrects, cuts it too sharply to the right and sends the car careening off the road, tires skipping along gravel and chipped pavement before Sam can get a boot jammed on the brake, sharply turning the wheel to the left. The right tires dip, and tall weeds scratch and smack the wide hood and windshield, pebbles _pinging_ against the frame as the Impala bumps roughly over the uneven surface before she really _stops._

Dean slips against the seat, falls against the passenger door with a heavy, worrying _thump,_ and doesn't move.

_SHIT._

They – or more likely, Sam – will be dragging branches from the undercarriage later, but for now they're all in one piece.

Or, hopefully in one piece.

The Impala growls low and steady as Sam flexes his fingers around the steering wheel, ordering his stubborn lungs to inflate and his frantic heart to slow the hell down. When the adrenaline-fueled spots dissipate and he's caught his breath, he turns to his unmoving brother. "This right here? This is exactly why I didn't let you drive, man."

Dean doesn't rouse at the jab, even enough to berate Sam for his godawful driving, just remains limp and unresponsive against the door. A trickle of blood trails dark and ominous from his left nostril, and even in the meager light from the road behind them, he's horribly, sickeningly pale. If this was another vision – and Sam can only assume it was – it's unlike anything he's seen. Or experienced.

His unease spikes, and his heart goes right back to hammering against his ribcage. He cuts the engine, dropping them into an eerie, chilly silence. "Hey. Dean."

Dean twitches, once, the knuckles of his hand knocking dully against the door.

Sam reaches over and grabs his brother's jacket sleeve, gives him a gentle nudge in the direction of awareness. "Dean."

Dean hums a tight, dissatisfied sound, then lifts his head slowly, in small increments, like it weighs a hundred pounds. Like it's just not worth the effort. He doesn't look over at Sam, or slap away the hand on his arm. He just blinks, heavily and groggily, and frowns at something outside the window.

"Hey." Sam's gaze instinctively follows the path of his brother's glassy eyes, but he can't see anything of note in the inky dark stretching beyond the glass. "You okay, man? You with me? How's the head?"

Dean's throat works, and he finally turns his head to regard his little brother. "What's with the twenty questions, dude?"

Sam narrows his eyes, wary of allowing Dean to deflect _any_ part of what's just happened. He tightens his fist in the material of his brother's sleeve. "How you doin' in there?" he prods, making it twenty-one.

"Mmm," Dean groans, tipping forward and looking like he might go all the way to the floorboards but for the fist he presses into the seat. He palms his forehead with his other hand. "Fantastic."

He really, incredibly _not._ There's a muscle jumping visibly in his jaw and he looks to be in a severe amount of pain. Sam thinks back on that fall at the fort, the way his cat-like, sure-footed brother had gone so easily into the water. Not only lacking grace, but coordination of any kind, and he's not getting his color back.

_This symbol is a mark of the spell's power source, hinting at where the energy's coming from to produce these visions._

_It's likely that your visions are increasing in intensity, but I have a suspicion that you, my boy, are weakening._

"Dean, man, talk to me. Was – was that another vision?" he blurts stupidly, like there's anything else it could possibly have been.

It takes longer than it should to get a response from his brother, like Dean needs an extra moment to process what Sam's asking him. Asking of him. The silence stretches on, the engine cooling and ticking beneath the hood and Sam counting his own breaths. Then, "no."

"No?" Sam narrows his eyes, confusion and concern warring for front of the line in the emotional queue.

"They aren't visions," Dean mumbles, voice muffled by the hand covering his face. He immediately raises his head, like he's just surprised himself with his own revelation.

"What are you talking about?"

"They're not visions," Dean repeats, surer, his voice stronger. "They're…" He swallows, looking like he might be sick, and swipes distractedly at the blood on his face. He turns to Sam with wide eyes. "They're memories."

"Wha – " Sam's jaw drops open painfully. " _Whose?_ "

His brother's gaze is bright, brimming with deep pain and lined with exhaustion. "I think…Sam, I think they're Henry's."

"Our _grandfather_ Henry's?"

"No, Sam," Dean snaps, his voice deceptively strong. Pain has always left the door wide open for his brother's irritation to mosey through. "Henry Winkler. I'm seeing the Fonz's memories." The outburst costs him. Suddenly pinched and somehow whiter, he lays his head back against the seat and drags in slow, even breaths.

Sam swallows uneasily. "Dean…"

"I saw him, Sam. And Magnus. But it was…I _was_ him." Dean doesn't open his eyes, and he's clearly having a hell of a time putting together a coherent thought or sentence; his words are beginning to slur, running together like watercolor paints.

"Okay," Sam says, at a loss for words even though his mind is racing, spinning too fast to grab and pin down a single thought. "Okay."

"That the best you've got?"

"It's just…a lot to take in." He watches as his brother's wince deepens, as he shifts uncomfortably against the seatback, and he remembers the disconcerting sound of Dean's head impacting the door as they'd jerked to a stop, the _thwack_ of it echoing in his own mind. This is his family, his legacy, and he craves information like he used to crave less desirable things. Wants every drop of it he can get. His brain itches to know what Dean's seen. He knows Magnus – or, Cuthbert Sinclair – was Henry's mentor, and they must have gotten their hands and eyes on some serious magic.

Even so, Sam tells himself this additional information doesn't change things. It _can't._ He can't sacrifice Dean's wellbeing for the sake of digging into the history of a grandfather they were fortunate enough to meet before they got him killed. For now, his priority needs to be making sure his brother didn't put a new dent in his thick skull.

He raises up a bit and grips Dean's jacket sleeve once more, tugs gently until his brother's head rolls toward him.

"What?" Dean demands flatly, annoyed, but currently without the reaction time or hand/eye coordination to keep Sam from turning his head and inspecting the hard knot forming on his temple.

He hisses at the touch, finally raises a hand to clumsily slap at Sam's prying fingers. "Get offa me. I'm fine."

_Yeah, not so much._ Sam frowns at the feel of the bump in Dean's hairline, the faint discoloration spreading across his forehead. He sits back in his seat, offers a tight, resigned nod and runs the flat of his hand along the steering wheel. "All right, man." He stares out at the dark, still night. "We can talk about this after we've found a place to crash for a few hours."

Dean turns to him, glassy eyes screwed up in confusion. "What? Why?"

Sam raises his eyebrows. "I'm just saying, we could both definitely use some sleep."

His brother shoves himself straighter in the seat, shakes his head. "No, Sam. I'm fine. We've come this far, we need to see this through. Get this…this _whatever_ the hell, back to the old man and make sure he comes through on his end of the deal." Dean rubs at the tender side of his head. "That sneaky son of a bitch."

He looks weary and pensive, and on Dean? Pensive is dangerous. Somewhere between fifth shot of Jack and First Blade dangerous.

Sam frowns. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yes, Sam, I'm – " Dean's jaw clacks shut around his answer, eyes widening as he shifts on the bench, gaze pointed once more out the windshield. "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Where the hell's the road?"

**************************************************************

Sam's being quiet.

Too quiet.

That Sammy-specific kind of quiet that's not quiet at all, but a genuine cacophony buzzing with tension and unspoken questions, and it's all reverberating in Dean's skull like a pinball wrapped in barbed wire. He's never really needed to hear his little brother to HEAR him. To pick up on exactly what the kid's not saying, to understand exactly what it is Sam wants to KNOW.

_Does this change anything, knowing Henry is – was – involved?_

He hears it clear as day and knows immediately that the answer is _FUCK, no._ The thing's gotta go. He can't be at the mercy of someone else's mark.

Sam will grill him for details of what he's seen, for every minute detail he can possibly wring from these skull-splitting glimpses of the past, and that's fine. Hell, Dean will _welcome_ it. _After._ After the shit's off him, and after he's done some of that sleeping thing Sam mentioned.

He kneads his sore neck, flinching as his fingers feel out the rough, raised texture of the imprinted markings across his upper back. He grits his teeth and passes the time counting dashes in the road, watching the remaining miles tick down until they're back in Baton Rouge.

By the time they're closing in on the trailer, Dean's had more than an hour, trapped in the car, to sit and stew. To fume, and obsess, and think about how this old man – this stranger – has dredged up things from the past that are damn well best left in the rearview. To take the considerable pain thrumming through his head and turn it into something useful. Something like rage.

Sam hasn't even cut the engine – barely has the car _stopped_ – before Dean's slamming out of the Impala, leaving the door open to cross the small yard in long, angry strides.

"Dean, wha – "

"No." Dean's not _waiting_ , not stopping to answer questions, or even to think through what he means to say to Duncan once inside. He's on a mission, flying high on pain-fueled fury, and he left behind any thought of grace or good manners in the car. He doesn't give a shit that it's the middle of the night or that this man is probably someone his geek brother thinks should be respected.

Dean forgoes knocking, rears back and kicks in the trailer's door, sends it into the thin, fragile wall with a loud, dramatic _thwack._ With satisfaction, he watches one of the curse boxes slip from the edge of a shelf and thump to the floor.

"Ah. Mr. Winchester."

Dean's eyes whip up and to the left. The yellow light of a single table lamp throws muddy shadows on the far wall, and Duncan is seated at the unnecessarily large table, looking suspiciously like he's been awaiting their return.

"Did you retrieve the penny?"

His casually demanding tone stokes the fire of Dean's anger. He cocks his head, sending a flash of pain up his neck as he surges forward.

"Dean," his brother warns from behind him, and he pulls himself up short of causing any serious physical harm. For now, anyway.

Duncan doesn't even blink, though his attention stoically drifts in the direction of Sam's voice. He nods, satisfied. "Mmm. Good, you're both here. I can assume the heist was a success, then?"

The man is old as shit but he's still a decently-sized mass of human being, so Dean doesn't feel at all guilty about grabbing a fistful of Duncan's sweater and helping him to his feet.

" _Dean._ " Sam's at his side in a flash, yanking Dean's hand away from the man.

He's almost ashamed by how easy it is for his little brother to manhandle his arm down and back him up a few steps. He straightens, jabs a vicious finger in the old man's face. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I could get to that damn coin!" Dean's head is roaring with pain and he's feeling very much like wasted shit, but he's riding a wave of rapidly waning adrenaline and fury, uses what's left to put a jagged, dangerous edge in his voice.

Duncan adjusts his cardigan sweater and peers up at Dean through the thick lenses of his glasses. He seems eerily unperturbed by the frustrated hunters, almost cold. "I had heard rumors a few years back," he says with a shrug. "Of Henry Winchester's grandson. The vessel of the archangel Michael."

A chill drops down Dean's chill, hearing the words all over again. The man doesn't sound particularly invested, or even impressed by the information, but like he's merely reading a fact from one of the giant books back in the bunker's library. He shoots his brother's a side-eyed glare. Seems like Sammy's name-dropping hasn't quite given them the sort of advantage they'd hoped for.

The anger's just about the only thing keeping Dean on his feet right now, so he clings to it for all he's worth. "You sent us there – and risked our lives – on a _rumor?_ What if we hadn't translated that warding properly?" He jerks his chin toward his brother. "Or if _he_ had tried to grab the goddamned thing?"

The old man has already won and he _knows_ it; Dean's just made it painfully obvious they have the coin, and his hypotheticals don't seem to faze him in the slightest. He steps casually away, picks up a steaming mug from where he'd left it on the table. "Hunters" – he sneers, like the very word leaves a bad taste in his mouth – "don't generally live into their late-thirties unless they're either incredibly lucky, or very good." He takes a long sip, gives them an appraising look over the rim of the mug. "And considering who you are, I'm betting luck isn't something you often come by."

Dean forces a smirk, but can't rustle up a hint of humor behind it. "Hey, even I get lucky sometimes."

"What do you mean, who we _are?_ " Sam speaks up, his voice calm and open despite his tense posture. Good cop to Dean's bad cop. "Exactly how much do you know about us?"

Duncan doesn't answer, just regards them carefully as he taps a finger against the side of his cup.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Answer the man," he growls.

"Enough" is the simple answer. "I like to keep an eye on certain… _things_ of interest."

"Things?" Dean balls his right hand into a tight fist and takes a threatening step forward, not at all liking the suspicious, holier-than-thou look this wrinkled sack of shit just shot his little brother.

Sam quickly swoops between them, and he has that frantic, wide-eyed look he's prone to when he thinks Dean's about to throw a punch. And he might not be wrong. He plants a hand on Dean's chest, gives him a nudge backward.

"My brother and I are not _things_ for you take interest in," Dean declares angrily around the bulk of his brother. The ache in his skull reaches a crescendo, leaving his head feeling hot and horribly heavy. He digs into his pocket for the charmed penny, slams it to the tabletop. "There's your payment. Now do what we agreed, and get this damn thing off me so we can get the hell out of here."

When he lifts his hand, Duncan's beady eyes stay locked on the coin, brightening with a possessive sort of glee. "Oh, yes. Yes, this will do nicely."

That creepy-ass tone of the man's in back, and Dean grimaces, presses himself flat against the wall as Duncan shuffles past to gingerly, almost reverently set the penny onto a specific spot on one of the crowded shelves without even sparing a glance at the curse box that had fallen to the carpet.

The man flips on an additional lamp, and Dean winces away from the light. "So we're good then?" he asks in a tight voice. "You'll get this fuckin' thing off me?"

Sam shoots him a look, but Dean's not about to censor himself.

"Hmm?" Duncan stares raptly at the penny.

"Our _deal?_ " Dean grits.

"Oh. Yes," the old man murmurs, gaze locked on the coin. The look in his eyes is disturbingly like the look Sinclair had when he saw the Mark of Cain on Dean's arm. Greedy, obsessive. Dangerous. "Or course. Our deal."

Dean's anger suddenly flares out, leaving him with an eerie sense of déjà vu. And a really, really bad feeling about all of this, a gnawing pit of unease in his gut.

His brother's wearing an equally pinched, unhappy expression, shifting his Sasquatch body out of Duncan's path as he putters around the cramped trailer.

The man ducks in and out of eyeshot as he moves from room to room, locating a large, dusty wooden bowl from the narrow galley kitchen, gathering herbs and other items from various shelves and drawers. Some of the things Dean recognizes – cockle shells, cypress, and rosewater – and to judge from Sam's intense, narrowed gaze, his brother recognizes even more.

Duncan finally brings his concoction back to the table, where he stirs it deliberately with a wooden spoon. A strong, sickeningly sweet odor wafts up from the bowl, and both brothers cough and wince away.

"What is all that?" Dean asks, waving a tense hand at the potent mixture as his eyes water. "Can't you just say a spell or something?"

Duncan clicks his tongue, doesn't look up from his careful mixing. "I'm afraid it won't be that simple. With the way this spell has been patched together, there's no one counter spell to remove or undo it outright. We have to attack the individual segments."

"Which segment are you _attacking?_ " Sam asks, stepping up to the table. His eyes slide toward Dean, brow scrunched in concern. "The part that's using him as power source for these visions?"

"The blood spell," Duncan answers matter-of-factly, raising his eyes to each of them in turn. "That's where the spellcaster has pooled his resources, and if we can sever that link, we may very well be able to bring the rest of the spell down like a house of cards." He snaps his fingers, and they both jump.

Dean's usually a big proponent of violence and swift action, but something about the word 'sever' deepens that dark, gnawing pit. "Okay, but…" He shifts his weight, eyes darting to his brother. "That's the part that's connected to me, right?"

"Right you are." Suddenly, the old man's voice is almost cheery, almost like this is _fun_ for him. He grips the edge of the bowl. "This should draw out that link from the rest of the spell. Extinguish it."

"Isn't that gonna hurt him?" That worried line deepens between Sam's brow.

Duncan dips his chin. "It might sting a bit, yes."

Sam straightens, grips Dean's jacket sleeve and tugs him away from the table. "I don't like the sound of this," he says in a low, serious tone only Dean can hear.

Sam's always been something of a worrywart – and Dean can't deny he's given the kid _damn_ good reason to be, especially over the past few months. But Dean also can't honestly see how he has any other choice than to trust that this old coot will pull through. He doesn't even get the chance to put his brother's mind at ease, as Duncan's spoon clatters loudly to the tabletop.

"Okay," the old man says, lifting a hand to adjust his glasses.

"Okay?" Dean parrots, raising his eyebrow.

"Your shirt, young man."

"Oh. Right." Dean hurriedly, if not stiffly, removes his jacket and shirts, taking care not to meet his brother's eyes as his latest collection of bruising is put on display; a pattern of rock-shaped imprints blooming along his ribcage and side. He doesn't even peek himself; he can _feel_ how bad it looks.

"Dammit, Dean," Sam seethes, hoarse and exhausted, and _exhausting._

Duncan pays Dean's injuries no mind. "Turn around, please."

Dean swallows, covers his unease with a curl of his lip. He rotates stiffly, bracing his hands against the back of a chair.

"Now, as I said before, I can only speculate, but this may sting a bit."

"Just do it." Dean raises his eyes to lock on Sam's in the wide mirror. His brother really does look like shit, beat to hell and nearly as white as Dean does himself. Worried shit. He's already put Sammy through the wringer, wants this to work almost more for the kid's sake than his own.

He flinches as the magical mixture hits his skin and spreads across his shoulder blades, thick and surprisingly warm. The smell of it punches him in the face, twists his stomach. "You done?"

"I am." The old man sets the bowl aside on the table and steps away to wipe his palms on a checkered hand towel.

Sam's eyebrows worm together as he shifts his weight nervously. He crosses his arms across his chest. "Do you feel…anything…I don't know, happening?"

Dean doesn't answer right away, really tries to give the smelly shit a chance to do something besides turn his stomach and make him feel like he needs a shower. He shakes his head, and raises his eyes to Duncan. "No."

For a long moment, they all stare at each other, and nothing happens.

Dean fidgets as the goop on his back begins to quickly dry, and itch. Then it starts to _burn._

His fingers tighten around the back of the chair as the heat builds. It spreads through his entire body like a zip of fire along his bloodstream, uncomfortable, but not…exactly… _scratch that._ It hurts like a mother –

"Fuck," he grits, twisting away from the others. He sucks in a lungful of stale air, grips the chair until his fingers tingle. "Son of a bitch," he hisses, when he can't hold his breath any longer.

"Dean?"

"S'okay, Sam." Dean forces a tight smile that's probably not as reassuring as he'd like it to be, and shifts his shoulders. He back feels on _fire_ , an overload of all his nerve endings, and when he squeezes his eyes shut he can almost see the design of the markings there, the sigils and swirls seared by the old man's gunk.

Sam's suddenly in his face, gripping Dean's arm with a white hand. "This is _not_ okay, Dean. What's – "

He doesn't have any idea what Sammy says after that.

The pain, and the _heat_ , intensifies without warning, and a fiery lance shoots from Dean's back up into his neck and head, where it crushes his skull in a VICE. Over the pounding blood in his head and the ringing in his ears, he hears Sam shouting his name, the dull smack of a body making friends with a solid surface, a muted _crash._

And then nothing.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Dean's throat works, and he finally drags his eyes open to regard his little brother. "What's with the twenty questions, dude?"
> 
> On Dean? Pensive is dangerous. Somewhere between fifth shot of Jack and First Blade dangerous.
> 
> "Hey, even I get lucky sometimes."
> 
> an overload of all his nerve endings


	13. Chapter Twelve

Sam impatiently peeks at his watch. His heart is pounding nervously and his entire body is thrumming with tension, and he's just about had his fill of standing idly by while his brother suffers right in front of him. He's done enough of that over the past several years to last a lifetime; two, even. Dean can take a hit like nobody's business, and has done so too many times to count, or even remember with any sort of clarity. But this…this right here is something that always sticks with Sam. This feeling of utter helplessness. Worthlessness.

Whatever Duncan's concocted and smeared on Dean's back is clearly doing _something_ , because his brother's pale face is twisted in discomfort and he can't seem to stand still. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and his fingers are stark white, wrapped around the back of the kitchen chair in some feeble attempt to ground himself from whatever pain he's experiencing.

Forced to watch, to stand by, Sam winces and mirrors his brother's motions, fidgeting as though the pain is his own. After another glance at his watch, he turns his head to glare across the poorly lit trailer at the old man.

Duncan seems to have forgotten Sam's even in the room, eyes shining as he stares at Dean with rapt, curious attention.

If the stakes weren't so high, maybe Sam could give the man the benefit of the doubt. Undoing a spell with the sort of mojo both Duncan and Cas seem to think this one has is a serious undertaking, and it will be a brag-worthy feat, should he succeed.

_When_ he succeeds, Sam forcefully self-corrects.

"Fuck." Dean twists away and sucks in a ragged breath. "Son of a bitch."

Sam's heart breaks free of his chest and jumps clear into his throat. He drops his arms to his sides, takes a step closer to his brother. "Dean?"

"S'okay, Sam." Dean grimaces, a tight-lipped contortion of his mouth that's probably meant to be a smile. He squeezes his eyes shut, and his face suddenly goes the sort of terrifying bloodless white Sam's seen too many times.

He surges forward to his brother's side, grabs ahold of Dean's arm. "This is _not_ okay, Dean. What's happening, man?"

Dean makes an awful, strangled sound of shock and pain, and jerks violently.

As his brother twists away, Sam's eyes are drawn to the markings on his back, which are _glowing_ through the muddy mixture spread over them.

Dean wrenches away from Sam's grasp and throws an arm back, fingers clawed like he means to tear the damn symbols from his own skin.

"Dean, stop – " Sam's plea is cut off as he takes a flailing hand across the forehead. Seeing stars, he makes another grab for Dean's thrashing arms, grits his teeth as he fights to keep his struggling brother upright without harming him further.

" _Help me,_ " he all but shouts at Duncan, who does nothing but stare, slack-jawed and useless, until Sam snaps his fingers in the man's face and barks "hey!" If nothing else, Sam supposes there's a brief moment's comfort to be found in knowing this pain his brother is in wasn't part of the plan.

On second thought, that's really no comfort at all.

Duncan hurries forward to grip Dean's other arm, and cops an elbow to the cheek for his efforts. The incidental strike steals the old man's balance and sends him stumbling back hard into a bookcase, and his glasses go flying.

Dean sucks in a stuttering gasp of air and suddenly drops like his strings were cut, lands roughly on his hands and knees. He slumps there, breathing hard, his face white and sweat-slicked.

Sam follows his brother to the floor, his throbbing head and the dazed man sprawled behind him both testaments to the fact he should be wary to touch, but he feels overwhelmed with a fraternal need to somehow offer comfort, or at the very least support.

He lays a tentative hand on Dean's arm, noting with concern and apprehension that not only did Duncan's mixture not work – the inky-looking symbols still stretching across his brother's shoulder blades – but the markings now appear almost…scorched. The edges less sharp and defined, his skin looking puckered and burned.

If Sam didn't know better – and he really, really doesn't know better – he'd say it almost looks like the spell dug into Dean _deeper_ , and it's a thought that scares the shit out of him. He frowns, moves his hand to rest on his brother's shoulder. "Dean?"

His brother grunts, acknowledging Sam but unable to articulate any sort of actual response. Eyes still closed, Dean lowers his head, arms shaking as they bear his weight.

"Dean," Sam tries again, voice choked with an influx of misplaced hope and an awful sense of pointlessness. "Did it…I mean, can you tell if…"

Dean shakes his head, once. His fingers curl, nails scritching across the carpet, and Sam knows he's resisting the urge to feel out the spell's markings for himself. He lifts his chin, opens his eyes but won't look at Sam. "No."

The simplicity and sureness of his brother's reply hit Sam like a ton of bricks. He swallows, rotates his head to look up at Duncan. "What do we do now?"

The old man stoops to retrieve his glasses, shakily returns them to his face. "I think it's time for you boys to leave."

"What?" Sam's jaw drops. "No – no way. Whatever just happened to my brother happened because of you. Your cure didn't work." He pats Dean's shoulder once and stands, uses the advantage of his size to tower threateningly over the smaller man. "We did everything you asked, and you promised to help us. So _help us_."

"I've done all I can. This is…incredibly advanced spellwork, the likes of which I haven't seen since…" An odd, faraway look comes over Duncan's features, and he puts a palm to the rising, elbow-shaped welt on his cheek.

Sam slowly shakes his head, eyes wide and incredulous, then turns his attention back to his gasping, ghostly pale brother.

Dean's dropped his head again, staring at the floor and swallowing convulsively.

Sam assigns some significance to that, to what exactly his typically stoic big brother must be feeling, because Dean's not usually one to get sick from pain.

"Dean, hey. You good?" Sam returns a hand to his brother's shoulder, drawing first a violent flinch from Dean, and then his squinted, glassy stare. "Yeah, okay. Stupid question."

A bundle plops to the carpet next to Sam's leg – Dean's jacket and shirts, pushed unceremoniously to the floor.

Sam looks up, meets Duncan's narrowed, unapologetic stare.

"It's time for you boys to leave."

********************************************************************

Dean knows, pretty well, what to do with pain. He has lots of practice, shoving it into various locked boxes and dark corners in his mind to be stored until its forgotten, be it broken bones, strained joints, split skin, or even less tangible damage done inside.

Sometimes all of the above.

This particular pain isn't necessarily worse than anything else he's ever felt, it's just _different_. It's just _a lot._ It's a strange pressure in his sinuses and excruciating screws turning in his temples and a heat rushing through his veins that's _just_ this side of bearable. It's warring sensations that he can't sort through quickly enough to properly lock away.

Vision strobing and ears ringing and balance still fucked six ways from Sunday, Dean trips out of the trailer and goes to a knee in the mud, right next to that tacky-ass flamingo. The impact jars his bruised side and exacerbates the jackhammer in his skull, and the coarse material of his jeans scrapes against tender, sunburned-feeling skin.

"Goddammit," he curses himself in a low, rough voice, scrabbling to force his stubborn, worthless body upright before Sam feels compelled to help. Dean's pretty sure if his brother tries to touch him again – even something as seemingly benign as a hand on his arm – he'll lose it. He slips in the mud and dew-slick grass, goes straight back down to his knee. Harder this time, and the lid loosens from the box inside where he's been fumbling to cram all of the pain.

"God _dammit!_ " He shoves to his feet, focusing all of that pain and frustration on the faded pink flamingo, and punts the ugly little fucker clear across the street. It lands with a muted, hollow _thump_ in someone's aggressively unmown lawn, and his shout echoes down the row of mobile homes.

"Okay…I'll call it," Sam jokes half-heartedly from somewhere behind him. "Time of death – "

"Shut up, Sam." His brother's just trying to relieve the tension, but Dean doesn't want his tension relieved. He doesn't think better after relaxing, or after a good night's sleep. He thrives under pressure, stressed and loaded with obscene amounts of caffeine.

Sam gives up on jokes, puts his phone to his ear and walks slowly, stiltedly toward the Impala. "Cas, hey. No, it didn't…you could say the spell, uh, backfired." So maybe the kid's still got a few jokes locked and loaded.

This time, Dean throws his brother a bone, groans more from the pun than the pain radiating through his body. "You're better than that, Sammy." He leans carefully against the car, studying his muddy hands. "Not by much, but better." He makes a face and cautiously scrubs both palms down the thighs of his jeans so he doesn't dirty up his baby.

"He's…okay." Across the roof of the car, Sam pushes a hand through his hair, exhales loudly. He squints up into the black, pre-dawn sky, deliberately avoiding Dean's eyes. "I don't know yet. We'll call you back in a bit."

Dean doesn't wait for the inevitably sad puppy look, ducking gingerly into the car before his brother can stop him, wary of his sensitive skin and screaming skull. Sam drops heavily to the bench next to him, but doesn't move to start the engine. Neither of them speaks.

Finally, Sam sucks in a breath and does the expected, annoyingly valiant little brother thing. "I know it seems like the whole thing with Duncan was a waste of time – "

"It was," Dean snaps. His head is pounding, his side aches, and his skin is on _fucking fire._ He leans forward on the seat, taking some of the pressure off of his tender back. "Two days we spent on this lead, Sam. Two. And we've got jack squat to show for it."

"I know." Sam chews his lip, staring out the windshield. He nods. "I know. We'll just…we'll head back to the bunker, meet up with Cas, and…regroup."

"Regroup? That's your genius plan?"

"I don't know, Dean." Sam sticks his elbow on the car door, rubs absently at his forehead. "Duncan did say that we can try to solve the clues in your visions. Maybe find out who – "

"Memories," Dean cuts in and corrects his brother, as though it somehow makes a difference.

Sam rolls his eyes, aggravated. "Whatever – "

He's interrupted again, this time by his own viciously growling stomach.

Dean raises his eyebrows at his brother, who scrubs at his eyes and checks his watch.

"Okay, look," Sam starts again. "It's practically breakfast time, and we've been up for like two days straight. We need sleep, man, and _food_ , before I start chewing on the steering wheel."

It's a low blow, threatening his girl like that. But Dean gives in with a sigh and a nod, because he lets a lot slide, but he's not letting Sam eat the car.

****************************************************************

Dean can't even stomach the _thought_ of eating without feeling queasy, let alone actually go through the motions of chewing and swallowing. Sammy found them someplace decent for a change, somewhere without splits in the vinyl booth seats that doesn't smell like someone died in a grease fire, but eating still seems out of the current realm of possibility.

"Just coffee," he tells the waitress, pushing his laminated menu to the edge of the table.

Sam narrows his gaze, then raises his eyes to her. "How are your omelets?"

"They won't kill ya," she deadpanned, though Dean assumed the response had more to do with her personality than the quality of the food.

"We'll have two. Ham's fine." Sam closes his own menu, hands it over with a tight smile. "And coffee sounds great. Thanks."

The sun slowly rises outside the window, and Dean watches the growing glare on the hood of the Impala as they wait in silence for their meals, until his gaze is drawn away by a high-pitched tinkle of laughter.

There's a girl up at the counter, shamelessly flirting with the kid behind the register. It's early enough in the day to know that she's been out all night, dressed the way she is, and she's young, but not so young that Dean feels sleazy for being distracted by her.

_"You wanna get out of here?"_

Dean shakes his head, drops his eyes away from the blonde. He's managed to lose a little time here, because the waitress has somehow slid their plates onto the table without his noticing. He looks down at the mound of yellow eggs and orange cheese with its pointless parsley garnish, and his stomach flops dangerously.

"Dean? You okay?" Sam's leaning over the table, wearing concern as obviously as he would a giant furry hat. His eyes slide toward the counter. "Do you know her?"

Dean frowns. "No. I just…" He rubs his forehead, the back of his sore neck. "No."

Sam jabs the business end of his fork at Dean's plate. "Eat," he orders, like a few bites of bland omelet will fix everything that's going on.

Dean curls his lip but rests his wrists against the edge of the table, at least in the vicinity of his silverware.

"I mean it, man. You need to…"

Another throaty, flirty laugh, and the sound of it drowns out his brother's voice.

The restaurant dims, and the air is suddenly sweet and smoky, smelling of alcohol and cigarettes instead of the meaty, peppery mix of kitchen cranking out breakfast platters. In the blink of an eye, Dean's back in that bar in Lebanon, not a one-off diner he hadn't even bothered to catch the name of.

_Pool cues crack temptingly in the background, and there's twangy music blaring overhead, not quite close enough to Dean's taste to justify being played at such a volume. He's got a few quarters in his pocket, and could put something better on the jukebox, something with a fucking_ beat _, but that's a thought that requires more action that he feels up to just now._

_"You wanna get out of here?"_

_His body predictably responds to the proximity of a gorgeous woman, but his brain pumps the brakes. They've been making small talk for the span of a couple of beers and she's cute –_ more _than cute – but she's being absurdly obvious in what she's after, and Dean feels an uncharacteristic urge to be upfront with her before this goes too far, to tell her that she's not really his type._

_He opens his mouth only to shut it with a clack, recoils before he says a single word, because what the hell does THAT mean? Since when does he have a type, beyond_ not jailbait, willing, _and_ available. _Hell, sometimes_ available _isn't even important. Or, wasn't._

_Dean doesn't really know what's important anymore, and he sort of despises the rarely-seen maturity that rears its ugly head on the heels of the realization that he's not going to find out this way. Not going to answer any questions about the man he is now, after the Mark, by slinking off with the first eager, pretty girl to bat her lashes to turn off his upstairs brain for a few hours._

_He draws his head away, leans back on his stool and offers her an apologetic smile. "Maybe some other time."_

_Her pouty look of disappointment is great for his ego, but her icy blue eyes flash with something…more. Dean's head is pleasantly buzzy with beer, but he suddenly feels uneasy. Exposed. He squares back up to the bar, keeping the extra distance between them._

_"Have a drink with me?"_

_He tilts his chin back toward her and, after a beat, nods an acceptance to her counteroffer. "Sure." He motions the bartender over and orders another whiskey, because the beer's just not cutting it. Not tonight. The man steps away to pour and Dean looks appraisingly at his new drinking buddy, whose name he hasn't even caught. "What about you?"_

_She grins the exact sort of gleefully dangerous grin that usually gets him in all sorts of trouble, and leans in to intercept Dean's drink as it hits the counter. She sips the whiskey while watching him over the rim of the glass, licks her lips as she slides the drink to Dean across the water-stained bar top. "Same."_

_"All right, then." He nods to the bartender, raising the glass to his lips. "Make it two."_

"She did something to my drink," Dean mumbles, pressing a fingertip to his lips as he remembers the unsettling tingle from that first sip of whiskey.  
"What?"  
His brother's voice snaps him out of it, and Dean looks up at Sam. "T-that girl. The one in the bar back in Lebanon. She did something to my drink."

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Dean can take a hit like nobody's business, and has done so too many times to count or even remember with clarity.
> 
> "I'll call it. Time of death..."
> 
> Dean groans more from the pun than the pain. "You're better than that, Sammy."
> 
> Dean lets a lot slide, but he's not letting Sam eat the car.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

Dean wakes with a start, his eyes snapping open as he sucks in a desperate lungful of air, like he'd been deprived of it. Like he'd been strangled, or held underwater. It's not an entirely unfamiliar sensation.

He doesn't remember dreaming, but that doesn't mean the nightmares weren't there. The nightmares are _always_ there, lurking like toothy monsters in the shadowy corners of his perpetually abused and overtaxed mind. He's come to expect restless nights and violent dreaming, and can't actually remember the last time he managed a good night's sleep. Isn't sure he'd even know what that felt like.

He stays quiet and lies still, gives his racing heart and stuttering lungs a chance to settle while he just listens, slowly constructing a mental image for the room. The air conditioning unit hums a low, droning noise from where it's mounted beneath the windowsill, broken by an occasional hiccup in power, a muted, metallic _clank._ If he's remembering this right – and he's got enough self-awareness to know that's quite an assumption to make right now – then the motel isn't a dump by any means, just the first place they came across after breakfast, because Dean was dead on his feet. Or so Sam had said, and Dean hadn't quite had the energy left to argue. Faintly clacking computer keys means his brother is parked at the table by the window, and possibly unaware Dean's awake. Which is just as well, really, because he could use a minute or two, to get his head straightened out before he's expected to be _on._ The last few days have KICKED his ASS, and that's coming immediately on the heel of getting his ass very thoroughly kicked.

His head is pounding dully, in a consistent, not necessarily noteworthy sort of way, like an annoying, buzzing background noise he's grown used to. Like the air conditioner. His chest, though, feels curiously tight, his throat dry and scratchy, and sleep hasn't done much to rectify that twinge in his neck. He shifts his head, just slightly, eliciting a soft _swish_ of the cotton pillowcase but not much in the way of relief.

The clacking stops abruptly, and Sam's chair creaks.

"Dean?"

_Damn_ , he thinks, and then immediately after, _showtime._ Dean sniffs and shoves himself into a sit, wincing as sore muscles all along his back and bruised side wake up and scream their protestation of the movement. He scrubs a hand up through his hair and glances at his watch, assumes by the hour and the thin strip of sunlight parting the thick curtains that it's late afternoon. He lowers his arm and stares across the way at Sam's meticulously-made bed, the unzipped bag positioned at the end. The previous night, the early morning hours – it's a water-logged, headache-y blur of various discomforts, and he can't remember if his brother ever turned in.

"Hey." Sam squints appraisingly. "You sleep okay?"

"Like a baby," Dean replies roughly, voice catching suspiciously in his sore throat. He doesn't even bother forcing eye contact with his brother; they both know he's lying through his teeth. "How long you been up?"

"Uh, a while." Sam returns the favor, redirects his gaze back down to the computer screen. He hits a few keys, then closes the lid of the laptop. There's a takeout coffee cup next to the computer, and another discarded on the counter behind him.

_A while_ , Dean notes with a frown. "You went out?"

His brother rotates in his seat to fully face him, eyebrows coming together in worry. "Yeah," he says, stretching out the word. "And you were awake when I did."

Sometimes, he just shouldn't say words. "Right," Dean amends quickly, though he's drawing a complete blank. What he's got recollection of is muddled, at best. There's…eggs, maybe, and really watery coffee, and really watery _water_ and a fiery lance of pain before that, and then now. That dull, persistent throb between his temples and Sam staring him down, all sharp angles and palpable concern.

His brother props his elbows on the back of the chair and the table in a transparent play at nonchalance, an attempt at casualness that's difficult to convincingly pull off when his spine is ramrod straight. "How you feeling?"

"Better," Dean says automatically.

Sam narrows his eyes, nods after a beat. "That's good."

"Yeah, it's a real dance party." He jerks his chin at the computer. "What're you doin'?"

"Trying to figure out our next move."

Dean rubs the back of his sore neck, cocks his head to the right until he feels a satisfying _crack._ "Any luck?"

"Yeah, I think so." Sam drops his eyes to his hands, fingers twisting together restlessly. "I talked to Cas."

Dean snorts. "And I take it he didn't have good news."

Sam's eyes dart up, widen like a caught child's. "What?"

The annoying twinge is already back. "Sam, you look like someone backed over your dog. Spill already." Dean sighs and seeks higher ground, throws the covers from his legs and rotates to swing them over the edge of the mattress. He ends up making the move a bit faster than ANY part of his body appreciates, and the room sparks then dims around the edges. He ducks his aching head and swallows. "Damn."

"Hey, hey." Sam jumps to his feet and holds out a hand, but stays out of swinging range. A lesson Dean taught him at an early age. "Take it easy. You've been, uh…it's been a rough couple of days."

"Thanks, Mom." Dean grimaces, presses a palm against his aching chest. "I remember."

His brother folds his arms across his chest. "I'm just saying, you're not exactly operating at a hundred percent, here."

"I'm fine." Dean drops his hand, clears his throat. "What did Cas say?"

Sam pauses, waves a vague hand before speaking. "Well, he's been digging through the archives for a couple of days now, and he was able to uncover more about the source of the, uh, spell."

"Duncan said it was me." Nothing vague about that.

"And as much as I hate to give that son of a bitch any credit, it looks like he was right." Sam lets out a long, slow breath and shifts his weight, stalls some more. "Cas said it's like…well, he used an analogy that doesn't really translate – "

"Sam," Dean barks, rolling his eyes. He's not really looking to drag this obviously bad news out and make a damn day of it.

"It's like a light switch that's always flipped on," Sam reports with a wince. "Just…draining energy. Until…"

"Until I don't have anything left to power it," Dean finishes bluntly and dully.

" _Or_ ," his brother counters forcefully. "We chase this thing to the finish line. Piece together the clues from the visions and _stop_ this."

"All right." Dean rubs his eyebrow, swallows around that damned rising itch in his throat. "You want to what now?" He holds up a hand before his brother can speak, shakes his head. "Like I'm five."

Sam moves back to the table, sinks into his chair. "I got the idea from something Duncan said – "

"Yeah, okay." Dean kneads again at the back of his neck. "Can we _not_ take our tips from that creepy bastard?"

Sam nods. "Look, man, I hear you. And I get it. But I'm not exactly seeing a whole lot of options at this point."

Dean rolls his eyes, and his brother takes that as his cue to continue.

"Whoever did this to you, they're after something specific. Something that Henry must've gotten his hands on, during whatever mission it is that you're…seeing, right?" He doesn't wait for Dean to insert a thought, plows forward. "They're using you to find it, and if we can figure out what that _is_ , and get to it first, maybe we can stop this. Maybe that's the spell's endgame."

_Maybe._ Things used to be so easy, so black and white. A goddamned _lifetime_ ago. Lately, they spend a lot time in that murky gray area of _maybe._ Even evil comes with an asterisk these days, a _maybe._ Dean works his jaw, scans the small room for his cell phone.

"What is it?"

He spots the phone on the floor next to his bed, like he'd tossed and turned it right onto the carpet, and stoops gingerly to scoop it up. "I'm gonna call Cas, hear all this for myself."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "Since when do you grade my homework?"

Dean spins back and opens his mouth to reply, but he doesn't get a single word out before that persistent tickle climbs all the way out of his throat and escapes in a succession of quick, wet coughs that nearly send him to the floor next to his phone.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine, Sam," he retorts hoarsely, pressing a hand against his hot, scratchy chest.

"That's debatable." Sam rises with a sigh and grabs Dean's arm, forces him too easily into a seated position atop the bed.

Dean curls his lip, swats at his brother until he backs away. "Not right now, it's not."

"Fine." Sam picks up a notepad and pen from the table, eyebrows drawn together as he studies whatever he's written there. "Last time, you said you were – or, I guess, Henry was – in a car, with Magnus." He looks up. "Do you know where they were going?"

"Sam – "

"I know it's not easy, man, but try to remember. Anything. A road sign, maybe. A – "

Dean stands abruptly and wordlessly, grabs his bag from the floor. He tosses it to the rumpled sheets and rummages through, searching for a passable change of clothes.

"What are you doing?"

Dean hitches a shoulder as he fists a clean t-shirt, doesn't turn around. "Well, Sam, I was thinking you might at least let me grab a shower before you start poking around in my head." He doesn't allow a reply, keeps his chin tucked low and out of his spluttering brother's eyeline as he moves past Sam into the bathroom.

He doesn't slam this door, just closes it with purpose, the kind that doesn't say _I'm pissed_ , just _back off a damn minute._ He hits the light switch, wincing as a harsh, bright light fills the small room. Dean drops his clothes to the floor with a cough and cranks the hot water in the shower, all the way, then turns to stand at the counter, hands framing the sink.

He stares into the mirror, at the ghostly face staring back at him, until it fogs over completely.

**************************************************************************

The bathroom doorknob finally rattles, and Sam's head snaps up.

Steam curls out into the room as Dean reenters, and "youokay" is on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it back, shoves it into the corner of his mind that's already stockpiled with dusty, unasked questions and discarded concern. The hot water seems to have worked its wonders on his brother's stiff muscles, the man moving with a bit more fluidity than when he'd stalked into the bathroom. So Sam instead drops his eyes and lifts a corner of the plain white box on the table. "I got donuts."

Never mind that it's now nearing sunset and traditional dinnertime, and the pastries aren't exactly fresh. But it's not like they've been keeping anything resembling a normal – or consistent – sleep or eating schedule since that thing appeared on his brother. And besides, Dean likes donuts.

His brother shakes his head, drops his armload of clothing to the top of his unzipped bag without so much as a glance at Sam. "Not hungry."

_Not asking._ Sam swallows that retort, too, but has a harder time stowing the concern. He leans back in his chair and frowns across the room at Dean, taking stock all over again.

His brother looks rundown and tired, despite nearly ten hours of – admittedly restless – sleep. Not that Sam is feeling particularly well-rested himself; more like severely – perhaps dangerously – caffeinated. The failure to undo the spell at Duncan's has taken a toll on them both, and any sleep he managed was owed to accumulated exhaustion, pure and simple. To his body's refusal to stay conscious and upright one minute longer.

He'd woken sometime around noon, slowly, in thick, gauzy layers, with a ferociously pounding head complaining of too little sleep, and an aching, regrettably familiar pit in his stomach. He got right to work, checked in with Cas then set up shop at the computer, watching his brother toss and turn and one time actually sit all the way up in bed to blink blearily at him across the room as Sam slipped out for coffee and a sandwich. He has nothing to show for the half day's research, aside from this espresso-roasted buzz in his skull and a precarious footing with Castiel, upon whom he'd unleashed his stress and short temper in an emotionally-charged tirade he can't believe didn't wake his brother.

It's been a few days now, but Dean's still sporting a bit of stubborn bruising around his left eye, in the shape of Cas' knuckles. He seems flushed, which could simply be from the long shower, or could have something to do with his midnight soak in filthy water and the way he keeps ducking his head to cough into his shoulder. Sam had waded hip-deep into the same frigid water to fetch him, and he feels fine, and Dean's never been one to catch cold easily. Or anything, for that matter; Sam can't remember the last time his brother was naturally ill.

But that had been before.

Sam had worried about this. Or, has a lifetime of experience dealing with supernatural fallout, and the presence of mind to acknowledge something like this was a possibility, if not an inevitability.

The Mark of Cain had dug in deep and changed his brother, gradually but steadily, on every level and in every way. Having it torn from him the way it was had to have been a vicious, abrupt jolt to his system, bringing _Dean_ back but leaving him vulnerable. To his own demons, and to run-of-the-mill bugs and viruses, the kind that are likely inhabit the murky water he'd fallen into last night.

All told, Sam can't shake this heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach, like other shoe is due to drop any moment now.

His brother rolls his head on his shoulders and rubs absently at his chest, and Sam finally loses the internal battle. Third time's a charm. "Y'all right?"

Dean sighs, shoulders falling as he drops his hand to his side, but he doesn't turn around. "What do you want me to say, Sam?"

And, yeah, he's got a point there, because Sam doesn't honestly know which he'd prefer: another half-assed lie meant to divert his attention and make _him_ feel better, or to know his brother is trusting him with the truth. He also knows that every time he asks such a thing, he's as good as setting his brother up, because there _isn't_ a right answer here. If Dean says he's all right now, then he's obviously lying. And on the flip side, Sam can't figure either of them will benefit from Dean verbalizing exactly how lousy he's feeling, whether it's the truth or not.

"Why're you lookin' at me like that?"

Sam, lost in his own musings, blinks. "Sorry."

Dean sinks onto the mattress, spends a moment eyeing the box of donuts on the table with curiosity, but also like he's suspicious of their motives. He eventually wrinkles his nose and redirects his gaze to Sam. "All right. If we're gonna do this, let's do it."

"You sure? I don't want you to – "

_"Sam."_

"Yeah." He looks down at his notes, grabs up his pen and taps his fingers on the pad. "Okay. Just…tell me about your last vision. Or, memory," Sam quickly self-corrects, before Dean has a chance.

His brother narrows his eyes, gives it to him cold. "It hurt like a bitch."

Sam swallows, feels a muscle in his jaw jump. "What was it about?"

"I already told you," Dean snaps, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "They were, uh, were in a car, arguing about their mission."

"What was the mission?"

"I don't know."

"Where were they going?" Sam persists.

"How the hell am I supposed to know that, Sam?" Dean moves his fingers to his forehead, scowls.

Sam tosses his pen down and scrubs at both eyes. "Just…I don't know, try to remember any details that could help us figure out where to go from here."

Dean sighs the frustrated, impatient sigh that means _this isn't gonna work_ and closes his eyes. His brow furrows, fine lines of strain and concentration creasing the corners of his eyes. He stills, fingers tightening in the folds of the blankets until his knuckles are stark white.

Sam shifts in his chair, leans forward. "Dean?"

Dean's eyebrows jump in acknowledgement, and he lifts his chin, swallows. "Shut up a sec. I'm trying to – " The color drains from his face like a plug was pulled. His entire body jerks, then goes scary stiff.

Breath hitching, Sam shoots to his feet with such force and speed, he sends his chair to the carpet. This isn't what he wanted, not at all what he was looking for. He's at his brother's side in a blink, grips Dean's arm just as he throws his head back and cries out, a sharp, pained bleat that sends Sam's heart into overdrive.

Dean slips from the edge of the mattress, and Sam's hold is the only thing that keeps him from smacking his head on the floor.

After a moment of vainly attempting to pull Dean back up, Sam concedes defeat to gravity and lowers his brother carefully to the carpet. _I'm sorry_ , he thinks. Chants. Pleads. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry._ He can only watch, helpless and responsible, as Dean curls in on himself, hands pressed to his head as he struggles through the vicious mental assault.

Sam keeps his hands close, but doesn't dare touch his brother. Not just yet. This is a precarious, vulnerable position Dean's in, and for Sam to acknowledge it can only make it worse. He has to wait his brother out, even if he's the reason, the cause for his discomfort.

It seems like an eternity before Dean stills and releases a long, low breath, fingers twisted in his hair like he's trying to keep the lid on.

Still, Sam waits.

Dean finally flattens his palms against the flat, drab carpet and levers up, arms trembling. He sniffs, mumbles something Sam doesn't quite catch.

But if Dean's talking – or trying to – he's _here_ , and Sam risks laying a cautious hand on his brother's shaking shoulder, leans in close. "What?"

Dean swallows, lifts his head. "Berwick. It was on a sign. That's where they were going."

"Okay," Sam says quietly, not knowing where that is or what that means but not looking to push the issue just yet. He gently squeezes his brother's shoulder, communicating _you did good_ and _thanks_ and _sorry._ Mostly that last one.

_God, I'm sorry._

Dean knows the drill, knows he has to let his brother know he's okay before Sam will go away. He bobs his head and turns his face away, muffles a harsh cough into his shoulder. "Berwick," he repeats, a surer, stronger voice. Then another cough, and a hoarse "fuck, Sammy."

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> Sam's eyebrows come together in recognizable worry, and his fingers jump against his thigh. "Yeah," he says, stretching out the word. "And you were awake when I did."
> 
> "Since when do you grade my homework?"


	15. Chapter Fourteen

_He comes to slowly, facedown and shirtless, with cool stone pressing roughly against his right cheek and bare chest. His leaden limbs twitch dumbly, and his head pounds mercilessly – a dull, abused thrum at the base of his skull. Groggy and confused, it takes some effort to get his eyes open, for all the good it does. Wherever he is, it's near pitch, and drafty, like a large, cavernous room._

What the hell?

_He instinctively tries to rise and can hardly even move, unable to get any leverage against the stone. He lets his eyes fall closed with a groan, recognizing the unmistakable pull of ropey restraints around his wrists._

_He fists his numb, tingling hands and rolls his wrists, finds them secured tightly beneath the thick, unyielding slab._

Fuuuuuuuck me.

_The thin ropes pinch as he tugs on the bindings, and he works his eyes open once more. It hurts like a sonuvabitch and his vision strobes, but he manages to get his head at the exact angle needed to take advantage of a dusty shaft of moonlight filtering between ceiling beams. With the edge of his jaw scraping stone, he sees his shirt and jacket draped neatly over – he squints, heat flaring in his left temple – a pew._

_So, a church. Or someplace that used to be, anyway. Something about the deliberate care that's been taken with his clothes forms a solid ball of dread in his gut, and he swallows against a rise of bile at the back of his throat._

_He registers several voices behind his head, a muddy and unintelligible hum. He can't isolate any individual voice or single word, but the murmuring sound is…oddly comforting. He could probably even fall asleep to it, but forces his eyes open wider and tells himself that would be a very bad idea. Possibly his last, in a long, torrid history of very bad ideas._

_A sudden pinch in the crook of his elbow takes him by surprise, and he flinches in spite of himself, at the pressure, the brief pain. Now feeling pissed more than anything else, he tugs again on the ropes, aggressively, and stills only when soft, unexpected gentle fingertips press against the tender spot. They travel the length of his arm and cross his shoulder blades, and his skin crawls at the intrusion. He tenses, can't wait to stick his knife into whatever thing is touching him._

_Something warm and thick drips onto his back, swirling and sticking to his exposed skin, and the tacky sensation brings too easily to mind, blood. He cringes again, mentally berates himself._ Get it together, Winchester.

_But, fuck, if he isn't all sorts of screwed right now, in all of the wrong ways._

_"You don't wanna do this," he growls, low and raspy, without even knowing what 'this' could possibly be. Something's going on behind him, out of eyeshot. He's not looking to find out what, but can't imagine he seems the least bit threatening right now, strapped down helpless and half-naked._

_"No, honey," an answering, clearly feminine whisper purrs in his ear. "We really, really do."_

We, _he thinks, head thrumming and skin buzzing uncomfortably._

_An eerie greenish glow engulfs the interior of the crumbling church; what he can see of it, anyway. There's an odd, horribly loud WHOOSH, and then he's on FIRE._

***************************************************************

He jerks awake, gasping desperately for air. Nothing smooth or understated about it, Dean comes off of the bench with such force he nearly puts himself through the windshield.

Beside him, Sam curses, yanks the steering wheel to the left and nearly puts the both of them into the backseat of a passing Suburban. "Shit," he says again, once he's righted the Impala.

A rare, self-conscious flush crawls up Dean's neck and warms his cheeks, and he props his elbow on the door, palms his sweat-slicked forehead and stubbornly directs his gaze out of the window. The sudden intake of air has further irritated his sore throat, and he ducks his chin to cough into his shoulder, winces as he swallows around the burn.

Sam's eyes dance between Dean and the road. "Bad dream?"

"Something like that," he answers hoarsely, absently rubbing at the inside of his elbow through layers of jacket and shirt. It's already fading away, doesn't feel _real._ The line is blurring more and more, between dream and memory and whatever the hell else has been forced into his head. Dean can't trust his own mind, not what he's remembering, or what he's… _seeing._ A phantom heat lingers along his spine, leaves him squirming against the seatback. Several miles pass before the fiery sting abates and he's really able to _settle._

A call into Cas and a dip into the bunker's archives had uncovered a single address in Berwick, Pennsylvania – a lead, and a full nineteen hours from where they were in Louisiana. Such a haul is usually a piece of cake, a drive Dean can make without even needing his brother to take a – very, very brief – turn at the wheel. They've driven farther without stopping, dozens of times, with half-treated bullet wounds and blood-soaked t-shirts acting as bandages.

But Sam's scared, treating Dean like he's made of glass and might shatter at any moment. They'd stopped off for the night and taken to the road again in the morning, with eight hours left to go. Dean had nodded off about…well, apparently a while ago. Unconsciousness had seemed like a fantastic alternative to being on the receiving end of anymore dewy-eyed "forgive me" looks from a little brother who's convinced himself that Dean's last vision had been entirely his fault.

Dean knows better, knows it was only forty percent Sammy's fault, max.

The radio is on but the volume is low, tuned to something soft and vaguely folksy that is well out of the range of Dean's own taste. He reaches out, turns the knob with a _snap_ and plunges the car into relative silence.

"Sorry," Sam says needlessly, throwing him another wide, mournful look.

Dean ignores it, stretches and clears his throat. "Where're we?"

Sam glances down at his watch. "Maybe an hour out of Berwick. You slept a while." Confirming what Dean's already figured out for himself. He yawns, long and obvious, and is too slow with the fist he brings up to cover it.

"I can take over," Dean suggests, with a wide, false grin.

His brother's eyes slide over and back, expression remaining stoic. "We're nearly there. I got it."

And coffee, too. Sam lifts a paper cup to his lips, steam curling upward from the slit in the lid, and Dean pieces together exactly what that means.

Sam catches him staring, offers a sheepish, possibly apologetic smile. "Got you one, too." He jerks his elbow toward a drink carrier on the flat of the seat between them, with a second steaming cup.

Dean wants to resist, wants to be irritated that he slept through yet another stop, but he can't deny his sleepy, pounding head a strong cup of coffee. He works the cup free of the cardboard and downs a quick mouthful. The hot brew scalds his raw, aching throat, and he deems a single swallow to be enough, replaces the cup with a wince and a wet cough.

Sam notices, obviously, but keeps his thoughts to himself. Dean can only assume he looks as lousy as he feels, but all things considered, a cold is the least of their concerns.

He shifts on the bench, adjusting to a dip in the seat that isn't _his._ He treasures every inch of this car, but a long stretch on the road just isn't the same from the passenger side. Not with Sammy behind the wheel, who's allergic to fun, tends to ride the brakes, and worships the pagan god of posted speed limits. Dean's feeling annoyed and uncomfortable, and possibly – okay, _probably_ – feverish, but more than anything, he just despises this utterly worthless feeling of needing to be hauled around and saved by his brother. Again.

He coughs, a dry heat tearing up from his chest and all along his sandpaper rough throat. It doesn't sound good, and he knows that. But he's fine. Mostly.

"Dean?"

_Right on cue._ He leans into his hand, digs fingertips into his sweaty temple. _I'm FINE, Sam._ "Hmm?"

Sam's hands tense around the steering wheel, and he throws Dean a curveball. "What, uh, what exactly did Duncan's counterspell do to you?"

Dean sighs and drops his elbow from the door, lays his head back against the seat. He takes his time, then says finally, honestly, "I don't think it did anything."

"Yeah?"

He can't tell if his brother approves of his response, or is disappointed by it. He nods. "Yeah."

Sam doesn't seem to buy it. He worries his lip, drags a thumbnail along the worn edge of the steering wheel.

_Dad used to do that,_ Dean remembers; one of the stubborn son of a bitch's tells. When he was unsure or worried, which wasn't something he let slip through the mask often, but it did happen. It's a small, seemingly inconsequential realization, but it stings all the same, in a way he wishes it didn't. Sam's always been the one more like Dad, no matter how many mannerisms or styles Dean tried to copy. It's every day, in the little things. The unforced things.

It's a realization that leaves the car in weighted silence for the next forty minutes, when they rumble slowly through a small town tightly packed with bricked shops and clapboard homes. Sam eases the Impala to a stop on a sparsely populated residential street, outside a narrow two-story house with dormers and bay windows. He throws the car into 'park' but leaves the engine running, hooks his wrist over the wheel and looks to Dean like he's awaiting some sort of confirmation.

Like Dean's supposed to know where the hell they are. He raises his eyebrows, hitches a shoulder.

Sam rolls his eyes, gestures to the dilapidated, clearly abandoned house beyond Dean's window. "This should be the place. It's the only address in Berwick that Cas found in the archives."

Just an address, without any notations, or so much as a hint as to what they might be looking for here. What Henry might have been looking for here.

His brother peers through the windshield. "Any of this look familiar?"

Dean rotates on the bench, appraises the aging structure and the surrounding, only slightly more lived-in-looking houses. He's been through so many small towns in his lifetime, it's difficult to tell what might be familiar, and what's just more of the same. "Maybe?"

It's weak, but seemingly good enough for Sam, who cuts the engine and throws open his door, pocketing the car keys.

Dean follows suit, but his vision wavers suspiciously and he slaps a hand against the cool roof to assist in pulling his increasingly ill and frustratingly weak body from the car. A child's playful squeal draws his attention and he turns toward the boy, but the narrow street is curiously empty. Only a few cars parked along the curb, and dried leaves blowing across the cracked pavement. No children. It's unsettling, and he's not sure how long he stares down the vacant street before his brother notices.

"Dean?"

He shakes off the feeling, and turns back toward the house. "I'm fine," he says firmly, assuming Sam's concern and line of questioning.

"You sure?"

"I'm good." Dean swallows thickly, steps forward and claps his brother roughly on the back. "Let's do this, Sparkles."

Sam huffs a short, constipated sound, and lets it drop, as expected.

Every time Dean needs a fast, effective way to shut his brother up, he can count on the callback to Plucky's, and the glitter bomb. _PCP-crazed strippers._ He grins, approaches the house with as easy a gait as he can manage.

There's nothing special about it, nothing necessarily off-putting, either. The setting sun peeks through openings in the thick trees that frame the house, stabbing at Dean's eyes. Whatever this place was to the Men of Letters, whatever purpose it once served or secrets it once housed, it's merely an eyesore now. The neglected lawn is tangled and overgrown, the paint chipping around the boarded-up downstairs windows. The wide, wraparound porch sags beneath the weight of collected rainwater, and a rusted, weather-abused sign swings lazily from a rotted wooden post, declaring in faded print 'for sale by owner.'

Dean taps the sign as they move past. "What? No takers?"

Sam pauses, cocks his head thoughtfully. "Could be for show? Keeping it empty." He wrests his cell phone from his jacket pocket, dials the posted number. After a beat, he nods. "Number's not going anywhere."

"That mean something to you? Or is it just…" Dean trails off, waves a vague hand.

"I don't know." Sam frowns, tucks the phone away. "Come on."

They move swiftly and soundlessly as possibly around to the back of the house, somewhat concealed by the growing shadows of looming twilight. A branch snaps under Dean's boot as he hops up onto the porch, and with a glance back at Sam, he tests the knob, finds the door unlocked. He shrugs, nudges it open.

The old hinges creak ominously, and a chilly breeze whispers past into the house, scattering a collection of curled, long-dead leaves and blowing up a plume of dust from the grimy tile of the kitchen floor. Dean digs a mini-flashlight from his jacket as he steps over the threshold of the room, his brother right on his heels with a light of his own. A cursory sweep reveals the base structure – cabinets and door frames – in poor condition but seem to be intact. There are fist-sized holes chunked from the walls, with jutting, exposed wires were appliances once were.

Dean peeks around a doorway into the next room; from what he can tell, the large house is completely bare, without a stick of furniture. "Nice digs," he comments, leading the way into what must have been a formal dining room. The lower half of the walls are lined with wide wood panels, with dark, peeling wallpaper on the top.

Behind him, Sam sneezes. "I don't know about that."

As they move on to the entryway, Dean takes in the trash littered along the baseboards, crumpled plastic wrappers and dented cans. He shrugs. "For squatters, then. We've sure done worse." A chill drops down his spine, and the air seems to go out of the room. He sucks in a breath, has been hunting long enough to know better than to ignore a feeling like this. "Or maybe not," he amends, glancing back at his brother. "Feel that?"

"Yeah." Sam nods. "I don't think anyone would stay here long."

"EMF?"

Sam drags the detector from an inside pocket and flips it on, quickly sweeps the dim foyer, the base of the staircase. The device remains dark and quiet, and he shakes his head. "Negative. Definitely something weird here, though."

Dean raises his arms, encompassing the empty, silent house. "Sam, there's _nothing_ here."

"Then leftover, maybe." His brother tucks the detector away, eyebrows jumping thoughtfully. "Upstairs?"

Dean lifts his flashlight and squints up at the second floor. He puts a hand on the wide banister and a boot on the first step, and the room shifts without warning, brightens. Suddenly there are rich, dated furnishings filling the space, and the hardwood is polished. A plush rug softens the step beneath his foot.

The same house, but…much different.

_His fingers tap nervously against the banister. A few steps ahead, Magnus pauses and peeks over his shoulder._

_"Step lively, Henry. They can't know we were here."_

The room comes back, swings sickeningly and Dean slips with it, stays on his feet by virtue of the strong hand around his upper arm.

"They stole something," Dean mutters, leaning heavily against his brother and skipping the formalities. He blinks until his eyes readjust to the dark. "Henry and Magnus."

"You know what?" Sam tightens his hold on Dean's arm. "The other day, you said they were talking about a book. Was it…?"

Dean frowns and pulls away, using the banister for support. He shakes his head. "I dunno."

"Any idea where?"

"No."

His brother purses his lips and bobs his head, clearly frustrated. "I thought these visions were supposed to be helpful."

"We're here, aren't we?" Dean stoops to collect his fallen flashlight, and a pain flares in his head, protesting the movement.

"Yeah, okay." Sam's eyes drift up to the second floor. "Let's check it out."

"They can't know we were here," Dean mumbles, without thinking.

Sam stops abruptly, halfway up the stairs. "What? Who can't know we were here?"

"Hmm?" Dean scratches his temple, rubs a hand over his chin. "Nothin.' Sorry."

Upstairs, the narrow hallway is lined with the same wood paneling as the rooms below, and several doors stand ajar. A brief search of the first two rooms come up just as empty as downstairs.

"Any idea where we should be looking?"

Dean jerks his chin. "No."

Sam sighs, flaps his arms. "Well, if they stole whatever it was, there's a better than even chance it was hidden, yeah?"

Dean drops his head back, exhales loudly. "Hidden where? Sam, there is literally nothing here."

"I know, Dean." His brother kicks open the next door with the toe of his boot, gestures across the hall with his flashlight. "Check the floors, the walls. Anything."

Dean throws up a hand, ducks into the room opposite Sam. He rolls his head on his shoulders, cracking his neck, and does as instructed, runs his hand along the dusty, wood-paneled wall, until one of the slats gives beneath his palm. Yahtzee. "Sam," he calls. "Here."

He drops into a crouch and grips the edge of the false panel. The thin bit of wood groans and cracks as he pulls it away.

"Dean – "

_"Henry – "_

" – wait – "

_There's a sharp bite into his palm as the panel comes loose, too quick to really be painful. He jerks away from the false wall, overbalances and falls awkwardly to the hardwood, lands hard on his hip. He holds his hand aloft, squinting at the bright bloom of blood welling there, in the fleshy spot below his thumb._

_His head swims, but there's been time, now, for the sting to settle in. Time to register the curious flush of heat warming his hand and climbing his arm, nestling in his chest dangerously close to his heart._

_Hands fist in his jacket lapels, give him a rough shake. "Henry?"_

_"I'm fine." But there's no denying the tremble in his voice, in direct contradiction to his words. He should have anticipated something like this, some sort of booby trap. He quickly presses his bloody palm against his thigh. "It's nothing."_

The back of Dean's head cracks against an unforgiving surface, and his eyes blow wide. Breath ragged, he brings his right hand into his field of vision. He blinks; there's no mark, no blood, but he feels the sting all the same. _Oh, this can't be good._

"Dean?" Sam hovers over him, grabs his shoulders and drags him into a sitting position. "What the hell was that?"

"It was here." Dean squints at the shifted piece of paneling. "There."

"What was?"

Dean narrows his eyes, tries to remember. He can't summon a clear mental image of what Henry had seen, can only shake his head.

Keeping a hand on Dean's shoulder, Sam turns on his heels, frowns back at the empty, dark room. "There's nothing here now, man. Let's get out of here."

Dean nods wordlessly and accepts the help up to his feet, making a fist with his aching right hand.

*************************************************************

Dean's cough has had Sam concerned since New Orleans, but it's picked up in earnest since they got back in the car. It's evolved into a violent, vicious sound, and Sam has a sinking suspicion that it doesn't have anything to do with a cold, or the flu, or anything else his brother might have inadvertently contracted when he slipped beneath that freezing water. Dean's color is positively awful, and he can't seem to draw a full breath, each attempt whistling thinly through his choked airway.

He's obviously sick, with something that came on frighteningly fast, after the vision – _visions_ – in that house, and Sam doesn't even know what to start. He has a feeling that antibiotics aren't going to cut it.

He pulls off at the first motel he sees, and Dean snatches the key card, flings himself from the Impala and heard for the door to their room without grabbing his bag, before Sam can even offer to help him. Dean's hands are shaking so badly he can hardly get the key lined up with the slot, and Sam takes over, pulls the card gently but firmly from his wheezing brother's trembling fingers.

_I got it,_ he wants to say; the words – the assurance – are on his lips, but they stay there, because he can't lie to his brother like that. Sam doesn't got this. Not at all.

As soon as the door _clicks,_ Dean shoves past him into the room, makes a beeline for the small bathroom. He doesn't bother with the light, folding immediately over the sink and hacking furiously into the basin.

Sam follows with long, anxious strides, heart rate quickening. "Dean."

Dean jerks his head, meaning _back off_ and _not now._

But Sam catches sight of blood splattering not only his brother's pale lips, but also the porcelain beneath his white fingers. "Dean…"

Coughing miserably, Dean releases his grip on the sink to reach out with his right hand and fling the door closed.

Sam quickly brings up a hand of his own, intercepts the swing of the door with his palm and slams it back open.

"G'away, Sam," Dean grits, squaring back up to the sink.

"Shut up, Dean." He forces himself into the cramped space. "Am I supposed to pretend I didn't just see that? Or any of this? What happened in that house, man?"

_"Nothing."_ Dean tries once more to shut his brother out of the room, gives him a weak shove over the threshold and throws his weight against the door.

"Bull," Sam seethes. "Those marks, this spell – it's not just showing something to you, it's _doing_ something to you."

"I got it," his brother wheezes, punctuating the ironic, bold-faced lie with another bone-shuddering cough. Their grapple over the control of the door ends abruptly, as Dean's hand slips and he stumbles forward into the edge with a grunt and a _smack._

"No, you don't." Sam grabs for his brother's flailing arm. "Dean, you just put a dent in the door. With your face." He tightens his grip and hauls Dean bodily out into the main room, pushes himself toward the closest bed. "Just…sit _down,_ and tell me what's going on with you. Let me help you."

Dean falls back awkwardly to the mattress, puts a hand to his reddening jaw while Sam turns on the lamp. "Help me _what?_ " His shoulders hitch on a chuff of unamused laughter. "Who're we kiddin,' Sammy? It's not like I didn't have this coming."

***************************************************************

His words back his brother up a step.

Sam stands there a long, silent moment, gaping dumbly. He drags a hand down his face and crosses around to the other bed, sits heavily. "Dean, you – you didn't…this isn't anything you _deserve,_ Dean."

"How is it not, Sam?" Dean rotates to face his brother. "After what I – " He loses the rest – the words, the thought, and the whole damn motel room – as he's yanked backwards into darkness.

_It's late, and stormy. Thunder and lightning battle in the night's sky, and a heavy rain beats against the window at his back._

_Soft lamplight fills the room, because his boy's still young enough to be afraid of what might lie in wait, unseen in the dark. Hands crammed into the pockets of his coat, vision limited by the brim of his hat, he watches his son sleep, peaceful and unaware. Safe._

_He sinks onto the bed, tucks the blanket around his boy and rouses his drowsy attention. "Hey, sport. Sorry about that."_

_Sleepy eyes take in the hat, the overcoat. "Where you goin'?"_

_"Work. Just wanted to check on you before I left."_

_The boy blinks, narrows his eyes curiously. "What's that, pops?"_

_He glances down at the Aquarian star pinned to his lapel, smiles. "One day, I'll tell you all about it. Now get some shut-eye. I'll see you first thing in the morning." He reaches out for the music box on the nightstand, winds it up and replaces it. He turns out the light before he rises, because he's going to do everything he can to make sure his son has no reason to fear the dark._

_He pauses on the threshold, looks back. "Goodnight, son."_

Another crack of lightning yanks Dean back. He blinks up at his brother, sees the resemblance in Sammy's wide, worried eyes.

_Sam's always been the one more like…_

"Dad?"

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines used in this chapter:
> 
> It stings in a way he wishes it didn't, in a way only the truth can. Sam's always been the one more like Dad, no matter how many mannerisms or styles Dean tried to copy.
> 
> "No, no. I'm good. Let's do this, Sparkles."
> 
> "You put a dent in the door. With your FACE."


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Note: Hey! Look what I found! *blows dust off of story*
> 
> Okay, seriously. This story is NOT AT ALL in danger of being abandoned. When I start a story, I finish it. Hell, it took me six years, but I completed "Collateral Damage." There were some RL things, some original-ish story things, and - to be quite honest - I was an idiot to say "this chapter should be pretty easy." Case in point: only about one-third of what was in that original chapter draft made the cut here. It's undergone two major rewrites in just the past couple of weeks. I spent last month typing my fingers bloody to get this story rolling and finished, and have about 45,000 incredibly rough words waiting to be turned into readable material. If everything makes the cut, we could be looking at up to eleven more chapters, so I hope y'all are ready to get this party started.
> 
> There may a slightly different vibe to the second half of this story. Obviously, it's been a year and a half since I started writing it, and I'd like to think I'm not exactly the same writer I was a year and a half ago, or why do we do this writing thing at all? These past few weeks, I've really been thinking about just how many "sins" I can wring from these characters' pasts, and really make good on the promise of this story's title. There may be much more angst ahead, and much less action. 
> 
> I'll try to get back to posting at least one chapter per month. Thanks to all who have stuck out this unintended hiatus!

_The gate slams down with a sudden, harsh jangle that echoes through Sam's already thrumming head and ringing ears. His stunned body aches from the collision, sharp twangs singing out from his hip and knee._

_"I'm sure you had every intention of honoring our deal." Rowena's sarcasm is as obvious as the blood on Dean's face. "But why take chances?"_

_His brother stands at the gate, staring after her. He's clearly pissed, silent but palpably seething. But he's also fading, quickly, is visibly quaking from the combination of spent adrenaline and whatever pain_ has _to be rocketing through his beaten body._

_Sam had missed the show, but nearly caught the encore._

_"Son of a bitch," Dean finally mutters, wincing. His breath hitches as he brings up a hand to flutter close to his battered face, to assess the damage or wipe away an annoying trickle of blood, but he doesn't dare touch. There's blood all over his pale face, from a deep split in his lip and a wide gash below his left eyebrow. Even under the dim warehouse lights, multiple bruises are coming to color, along his jawline and a wide splash of berry hues high on his cheek._

_Sam shifts his gaze from his wounded, punch-drunk brother to watch Cas slump against the floor on his palms, arms trembling from the burden of his weight. Relief flutters briefly in his chest, because in the aftermath of Rowena's curse, his friend seems understandably weak but more or less okay. He can't say the same for his brother, as Dean tucks an elbow into his side and shifts his weight, swaying dangerously like a sudden breeze will take him out at the knees._

_An unexpected burden of responsibility lands heavily on Sam's shoulders. He'll have some interesting bruises himself, but the others are in rough shape, and he needs to get them back to the bunker, triage the damage. Of course, he has to get them out of the goddamned building first._

_He narrows his eyes at his brother, knowing exactly how hard an angel hits, and knowing that Cas had the witch's curse punching up his punches even more. "Dean?"_

_Dean's eyebrows jump in reaction to Sam's voice, and he raises a vague hand. He swallows, blinks heavily. Blinks again._

Ah, shit. _Sam shoves at the crumpled boxes he's crashed into, frees his legs and struggles to his feet. He staggers to his suddenly white-faced brother's side just as Dean starts to sag._

_"Whoa, whoa, whoa." He grips his brother firmly under the arm, does what he can to make Dean's transition to the concrete floor a little more deliberate, gets him planted mostly upright against a sturdy stack of crates._

_Dean's body tenses in pain, even as his eyes remain stubbornly locked on the gate._

_Sam takes the opportunity to appraise his brother's injuries. Blood still pumps sluggishly from the various wounds on Dean's face and his discolored cheek is swelling rapidly, and he keeps that elbow jammed into his side._

_It doesn't look great._

_"Hey." Sam crouches next to his brother, tries unsuccessfully to draw his attention. "Dean, hey." He frowns at the lack of response, claps a light hand to Dean's cheek._

_Dean jerks at the touch, hissing through his teeth as he reflexively bats at his brother's hand._

_Something in Dean's face shifts sickeningly beneath his fingers as he drops his hand to his brother's shoulder and Sam_ gets it. _Dean looks bad. Serious painkillers bad. Emergency room bad, if he can get the stubborn son of a bitch to agree. That's a card they haven't been forced to play in town yet, surprisingly enough._

_In his periphery, Cas moves to push himself to his feet, and Sam can't help the glare he shoots the angel's way. Dean is roughed up, and it both was and wasn't Castiel who did it. Just like it was and wasn't Sam who threw his brother around a hotel suite and clamped iron hands around Dean's throat. Just like it was and wasn't Dean who stalked Sam through the bunker and swung a hammer at his head._

_"Cas," Sam calls, voice sounding thick and strange to his own ears. He doesn't turn to see if he has the angel's attention before he continues, doesn't even throw around a half-assed inquiry as to whether he's truly okay. "See if you can find another way out of here." He doesn't mean to be a dick, but Dean's hurting bad, bleeding and broken and breathing shallowly and Cas did that._ Little brother _is taking the emotional wheel here._

_The angel doesn't respond, but Sam listens to the soles of his shoes scuffing across the concrete as Castiel shuffles away, never releasing his grip on Dean's shoulder._

_"Okay," he says finally, keeping his voice low to give an illusion of privacy. His eyes narrow at that troublesome cheekbone. "What hurts?"_

_Dean snorts and rolls his eyes, offers an evasive lift of his shoulder that has him paling and folding a bit._

_And Sam thinks, yeah, that sounds about right. He studies the blood on the brother's face, the multiple bruises. It seems likely that he has a concussion, on top of everything else. "How many times did he hit you?"_

_"Wasn't counting."_

_A tight, clipped response, and Sam knows better than to believe him._

_"There's a door," Cas speaks up gruffly from behind him._

_Sam flinches and glances over his shoulder, softens a bit as he takes note of Castiel's remorseful expression. Then he sees the blood dripping from the angel's knuckles._

_Cas notices, too, swipes the back of his hand against his coat, leaving a red smear on the fabric. "It leads to an alleyway," he continues, dropping his gaze._

_"Okay." Sam nods, turns back to his brother. "We should get moving, before that girl sends the cops in here."_

_"Agreed." Dean bites his lip and moves to shoves himself upright, only to stop short and slip back to the floor with a groan._

_"Dean…" Cas steps closer, extends a hand. "Let me – "_

_Dean brings up a hand. "Cas, it's fine. I'm fine." He gives Sam the look that means get me up now, and Sam hurries to oblige._

_Dean's not fine, not even close. And it's abundantly clear that the jackass thinks he's just gotten exactly what he had coming to him. He doesn't have to say the words; they're painfully, obviously written across his drawn, battered face._

"Who're we kiddin,' Sammy."

The memory comes back to Sam like a slap, a bucket of ice water dumped over his head as his brother raises a despondent shoulder.

"It's not like I didn't have this coming."

Sam recoils from the feeling, the _belief_ in his brother's voice. He had a chance to nip this train of thought in the bud, and instead just sat back on his heels, shot Castiel a heated glare and let his brother have his self-destructive way. And then did the exact same thing back at the bunker.

It's a disturbing, horribly off-base thought, but it's one that Sam's done his part inadvertently reinforcing lately. He can tell himself whatever he wants, but he still hasn't been doing right by his brother. Not like he should be. He should have pinned the stubborn martyr in his damn chair and told Cas to get to healing, instead of allowing Dean to walk around in pain, for _days_ , just because he felt like it was what he _deserved._

Sometimes when Sam betrays his brother, it's immediately apparent. And sometimes it takes a little longer to come around.

He takes a breath and drags a hand down his face, crosses around to the other bed and sits with a groaning creak of motel mattress. His brother won't even look at him, and why would he? "Dean, you – you didn't…this isn't anything you _deserve_ , Dean."

"How is it not, Sam?" Dean rotates to face him, posture tense and gaze dark, daring. "After what I – "

_After what I did_ , he means to say – is _saying_ – but before he can complete the thought he stiffens, eyes rolling up. His jaw _clacks_ shut and the color drains from his face.

Sam's heart jumps into his throat as he chokes out a stunned "Dean!"

His brother slips from the edge of the mattress, goes down before Sam can lunge forward and break his fall. Dean lands awkwardly on his right side, immediately shifting his weight away from that hand. He's breathing too fast and too shallow, and doesn't seem to notice when his brother slams to the carpet next to him. His glassy eyes are focused on something far away, something not even in this room.

"Dean, hey." Sam grips his brother by a quaking shoulder and tries to encourage him into a more comfortable, upright position, but Dean is somewhere else entirely, too far removed to respond to any sort of stimulus Sam can provide.

He looks drained and confused, glazed eyes pointed at something across the room that _isn't there_ , and he sucks in a rattling breath, whispers in a quiet, shattered voice, "Dad?"

The word tumbles from his brother's lips in a raw, unguarded way that twists Sam's heart – a wrenching and horribly specific brand of pain he's not allowed himself to feel in _years._ They've suffered losses, recently – hell, he's lost _Dean_ recently enough to feel the sting of it if he lets his defenses down too long. But this hurt is more complex, unfurling in waves and layers that feel like loss and hope and rage warring for attention his chest. There's a spooked, agonized look in his big brother's wide eyes that drives the knife of _Dad_ even deeper, that steals Sam's breath and rocks him back like an unexpected blow.

Because Dean possesses a sort of strength that's unquantifiable, but indisputable. He's a true force to be reckoned with, has stepped right up to the edge of the world and stared down the darkness on the other side, and even then he didn't break. He bends and he bends but he _never_ breaks, and he's supposed to be the one who digs his heels in and keeps Sam's head above water when he feels this way.

Except Sam's unbreakable big brother is coming completely undone before his eyes.

Sam draws his hand away from his trembling, seemingly traumatized brother. "Dean…" he stammers. "What…" He chokes it back – the brutal brain rush of _what the hell just happened? What did you see? What about Dad?_ – wary of the answer.

Because Sam knows: sometimes words hurt more than claws or knives or bullets.

He shoves himself shakily to his feet, but stays close. Waiting for his brother to come back to him, Sam stares helplessly, feeling emotionally wasted and utterly useless. Whatever Dean has just seen, whatever he's going through…there's nothing Sam can do to make it better.

The suffocating stillness in the room is broken only by Dean's ragged, uneven pants. It's a clogged, congested sound, like he's sucking desperately for more oxygen that the stuffy room is willing to part with. His eyes are all pupil and his complexion is appalling. Faint but frighteningly flecks of blood still cling to his pale lips, and the darkening bruise at his jaw seems like overkill, as far as unnecessary damage goes. Like Dean hasn't taken enough hits to last a lifetime.

Sam watches with a morbid mix of concern and fascination as the motel room comes back to Dean, or as Dean comes back to the motel room, from wherever his fractured mind has taken him. It happens in agonizingly slow stages, and he stays absolutely still through it all. Only his eyes move, fever-bright gaze darting to inspect each dark corner, and he doesn't blink as he acclimates himself to the room.

Whatever this was, whatever's just happened to Dean – _Dad_ , Sam thinks, chest tightening – it flipped one of the fundamental switches that his brother protects with everything he's got. With will and force and _no you fuckin' DON'T_ , and he knows from plenty of experience how difficult those can be to reset.

He cautiously moves closer, and his brother's eyes shoot up.

Dean sees Sam, and then he _sees_ him. He recoils, a violent flinch that has his elbow colliding with the bedframe, a painful-sounding _bong_ that bounces off the walls.

Sam gets the message loud and clear, halts mid-step and raises his hands nonthreateningly. He decides in that moment, with his unbreakable big brother broken and cowering from him like a wounded, cornered animal, that he'll gladly swallow whatever pain Dean's words may carry, because he needs to know what's just happened. Even more, he needs Dean to let go of whatever he's witnessed, whatever's just unraveled him as easily as a loose thread on a knit sweater.

But, "no," Dean rasps, full of raw pain and unchecked emotion, before Sam can even try to ask. He hooks that undoubtedly bruised elbow into the mattress with a wince and unsteadily leverages up to his feet, his eyes instinctively seeking out an escape.

But there isn't one; for fuck's sake they're in a _motel room_ , and, resolved, Sam starts moving again, keeps his hands to himself but gets right in his brother's face. Which, granted, hasn't ever proven to be an A-plus sort of plan. "Dean, man, what just – "

His brother plants a palm against his chest and shoves him away, a desperate, weakly delivered blow that barely affects Sam's balance. " _No_ , Sam," he growls. He doesn't meet Sam's eyes, but he doesn't need to for the words to pack their intended punch. Each Winchester has a tone at which he's communicating BACK OFF, and Dean has just taken his.

That's supposed to mean something. That's supposed to be the buzzer that ends the game, but Sam's stress has been piling up for weeks now, for _months_ , in new and in grossly redundant ways, without reprieve. Losing himself to Gadreel, then Kevin, then Charlie in the brutal, senseless way they had; the first, second, and third acts of the Mark of Cain, as he lost his brother slowly, in pieces, then suddenly and viciously literally, then once more in intangible fragments as the Mark took over; the cloudy, ominous start of the Darkness, throwing a wrench into their quest for _normal_ before they even really had a chance to start searching; and now this spell that's screwing with his brother, with a mysterious endgame that seems to be creeping closer, and no answer in sight, no way to break Dean from it. And to top it all off, the very fresh sting of the realization that he's become a very serious part of the way his brother views his self-worth, or lack thereof. Again.

He's done. He's exhausted – physically, mentally, and emotionally – and he's _done._

Sam's own switch has been flipped, and he's not about to back off. Not now.

Dean put a lot of strength behind those two words, maybe all the gas he had left in the tank, but in doing so his mouth wrote a check that his weak body is in no condition to cash. His brother literally _can't_ push him away right now, so Sam gives it right back to him.

"No, Dean," he spits in return, giving the older man a shove of his own, one laced with more than a year's worth of pent-up frustration, one that does better to hit home.

Weakened and unsteady on his feet, Dean stumbles back into the bed and unceremoniously thuds right back to the floor he's just picked himself up from, taking the brunt of the fall on his right hand. The impact clearly rocks him, and he's sluggish in rolling around to face his brother. When he does, his arms are noticeably trembling, and he attempts to compensate by glaring daggers up at Sam. He lets loose a single, chest-rattling cough before hoarsely demanding, "What the hell, man?"

"You're damn right, what the hell. What the hell was that, Dean?" Sam throws his arms wide, and his chest heaves. But whatever righteous anger he's managed to summon burns out quickly as he stares down at his tortured, confused, and clearly ill brother.

This attempt at secrecy is really just the expected defense mechanism of the aggressively closed-off Dean Winchester, and shouldn't come as a shock. Not if this has something to do with Dad.

Sam guesses this had always been a possibility, as soon as Dean realized it was Henry's memories that he was seeing. He may have been the one to catch an inadvertent glimpse of their father, but Sam has just as much right to the vision as Dean does. Except Dean's gotten extremely possessive of what little they have left of Dad since he died, unwilling to share anything with his brother, be it the man's memories, stories, or car. Like Sam didn't appreciate what he had when he had it, so he doesn't have the right to look back fondly now. But that might just be Sam's own guilty conscience talking, because Dean had never, and would never, say as much.

They've never been on even ground where the man is concerned, and force and fury won't wrench this tale from his brother. With a weary, apologetic sigh, Sam stoops and offers his brother a hand up.

It takes a moment, but Dean warily accepts – with his left hand. His eyes are still a bit unfocused as Sam hauls him to his feet and helps him settle on the lumpy mattress.

His brother might be weak and sick, but he's hardwired to fight. Sam keeps his mouth shut, refuses to offer another tasty morsel of bait, just sinks quietly to sit at Dean's side, feeling the anxiety and adrenaline of the vision and the shove slowly leach out of the man, until he's left exhausted and slumped against Sam's shoulder.

"Y'all right?" he asks after a moment, voice thick.

Dean grunts a noncommittal response, but Sam understands the noise as a white flag of surrender.

"You saw Dad?" he ventures tentatively, however obviously, heart tripping in anticipation of the answer, the details.

"Yeah," Dean says quietly, almost to himself. He coughs into his shoulder, and the palm he swipes across his lips comes away with a bloody smear. "Yeah, but it was…he was just a kid."

It makes sense, really, considering these bits of memory Dean is glimpsing belonged to Henry, and he died when their father was young. But even so… _hearing_ it makes it so much more real. Sam feels an unsolicited tug of envy as he gapes at his brother. "Wow," he says dumbly. "Okay. Was it – I mean, did it have something to do with Henry's mission?"

Dean starts to shake his head, then stills like the motion pains him, or maybe like the room is spinning around him. He squeezes his eyes shut and fists the covers – again, only with his left hand, Sam notes with a frown.

His brother doesn't open his eyes as he speaks. "No. Whatever it was, it, uh…it felt different. Like it slipped in." He swallows, wrinkles his nose. "Hurt like a sonuvabitch, too."

Sam files that away with the appropriate concern but his frown deepens, even though it feels like a completely pear-shaped piece of the puzzle sliding into place. "What do you mean it slipped in?"

"I don't know, Sammy," Dean breathes. He kneads at the back of his neck, makes a face as his fingers graze the raised, gnarled edges of the imprinted design on his back and drops his hand back to the bed with a sigh. "It was just… _different._ Like it was something I wasn't supposed to see."

"Okay," Sam says again. He bobs his head, though he can't _begin_ to understand what his brother's trying to put into words. Even when he was having visions all those years ago, there was an underlying clarity to the intrusion of his mind, to the pain, that each individual vision belonged to him. It was _his_ to interpret, to _change._

He's been suspicious of his brother's rapidly falling health and strength since that failed attempt of Duncan's to remove to the spell outright. He _knew_ something looked off – or, more so – about the markings of the spell. The curse. They changed after Baton Rouge, looking ragged and puckered like a hot bolt of energy had shot through each dark character and swirl.

Sam watches as his brother pales and tenses, as he coughs a sick, congested sound. "Are you okay?" he asks. It's a stupid, pointless question, but he doesn't know what else to say, and he really wants an answer to this question, if he can't get an answer for any of the others rattling around in his head. He _needs_ it.

Dean rolls his eyes, which is really just no help at all as far as reassurances go. He braces himself and shoves up one-handed from the bed, most likely looking to make a go at reaching the relative safety of a brotherless bathroom, but he's wobbly and off-balance, and tips against Sam's leg.  
Sam puts his hands out to steady his brother, but pride or self-preservation has Dean scrabbling to pull away, slow, sluggish movements that don't get his fevered, disoriented body very far. Sam takes the opportunity to grip his brother's right arm. He narrows his eyes up at his wincing brother, fingers tightening around Dean's wrist. He's been too deliberate in his motions, has been too obviously favoring his right hand since they entered the room.

"Something happened to you in that house, didn't it?"

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> He doesn't have to say the words; they're painfully, obviously written across his face.
> 
> Each Winchester has a tone at which they're communicating BACK OFF and Dean has just taken his.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a REPOST. Chapter was posted a couple of weeks ago, but has since been heavily edited. Chapter 17 will follow tomorrow.

"Something happened to you in that house, didn't it?"

Yeah, something happened in that house, but hell if Dean has any idea _what._ Or – a possibly more pressing concern – _how._ Each vision he's had since he woke up with this _thing_ on him has taken a tangible toll, sapping his energy and leaving him feeling more sluggish and drained, just like the old man predicted it would. But whatever _that_ was – something beyond a vision but less than an actual physical attack – it did more than just tap the Dean-keg. He feels weak, and _wrong_ , in an all-over, full-body assault sort of way, like he's coming down with every nasty bug he's ever caught all at once. Every fever and passing cold and bout of bronchitis, and that flu when he was seventeen that had him seeing tree frogs on the ceiling of their bedroom, where Sam had him quarantined until Dad got home two days late. Hell, even the damn ghost sickness.

But Dean's got a lot of experience playing through sickness, injury, and pain, and this is no different. He can't _let_ it be, because Sammy's just run a fucking gauntlet of stress, and whatever this is, Dean can handle it without bringing his brother down with him. Sam doesn't have to know everything; he never really has. Dean's got enough stories that Sammy's never heard to last a lifetime, or at least four years. Sam would pitch an absolute fit, even fifteen years later, to know even _half_ of what happened while he was away at Stanford. The dangerous hunts, the close calls, the injuries his brother played through.

Resigned, Dean mutters a weak denial and tries to shake Sam off, but for all his big talk and intention, he's having a hell of a time summoning the energy necessary to wrench his arm free, and his brother's certainly not looking to make it easy for him. His ears burn. "Let go of me," he seethes, a fierce, humiliated push of air through clenched teeth.

Sam refuses, maybe even tightens his grip around Dean's wrist as he stubbornly sets his jaw. "What's wrong with your hand, Dean?"

_Same thing that's wrong with the rest of me_ , Dean thinks, snarky and faintly delirious, feeling hot and cold and light-headed all at once. "Nothing," he spits petulantly, biting back a wince as pain flares in his hand, and Sam surely knows better.

The pressure his brother has on his wrist _hurts_ , in a way that's meant to, because Sam is desperate to get Dean to crack, and isn't screwing around here. And it's working; the ache in his hand goes bone-deep, already hovering on that delicate threshold of what he can cram into the perpetually packed-full 'what pain?' box in his mind. He stares back at Sam, teeth digging into the inside of his cheek.

Sam rolls his eyes and wordlessly twists Dean's arm, rotating his hand so it faces palm-up. The skin there appears unbroken, without any evidence of injury, and Dean is at least as surprised by this as his brother, who reaches over with one of those freakishly long arms of his to flip on an additional light.

Dean's breath catches in his chest, and he winces as he swallows the cough threatening to burst free. It goes down like a handful of razorblades, and he's pretty sure he's losing any threadbare credibility he might have left by the _second._ He clears his throat. "Satisfied?"

"No." Sam raises his gaze and locks eyes with his brother, chewing his lip thoughtfully.

Dean fidgets, jostling everything inside him that feels so very wrong and sending a hot line of fire shooting from his imprisoned wrist up to his shoulder. He's felt pretty crappy for a few days at least, and has just about gotten used to the bone-weary feeling, to the relentless throbbing at the base of his skull, even the dull ache in the relatively fresh plume of bruising all along his right side, from that asinine spill in New Orleans. But the past couple of hours there's been a new, unsettling stutter to his heartbeat, like a small bird trapped in his ribcage is struggling to escape. And that just really can't in any way be good.

Sam, posture tense and eyes exhausted but so _knowing_ , stares at him stubbornly, unwaveringly.

There's no denying that stress gauntlet still frighteningly close in the rearview, but they're sort of starting over here, and if he's really being honest with himself, maybe the worst thing for Dean to do is keep this from his brother.

"The house was booby-trapped," he says bluntly, forcibly stone-faced and trying to convey _pissed_ instead of _ow._ He can't afford _ow._ "Can I have my hand back now?"

Mission accomplished. Guilt falls predictably over Sam's expression – sometimes there's just no side-stepping that – but he releases Dean's wrist, shooting to his feet, throwing his arms wide. "What? Why didn't you say anything?" His eyes widen, frantically searching his brother for any obvious sign of injury.

"Not now," Dean clarifies tiredly, waving his good hand as he stumbles back a few steps, out of his brother's considerable reach. "Then, with Henry."

"The vision you had in the house…you saw something happen to Henry," Sam says slowly, eyes narrowing as he works it through. Always was a smart kid. "He was…hurt."

"Yeah, I guess." Dean shrugs, rubbing absently at his palm, but there isn't a doubt in his mind. Like they've been dragging their heels dissecting what he's been shown, this spell's gone and taken the party up a notch. Now he's not only seeing what Henry saw, but _feeling_ what he felt. Dean can't keep the pain from his face, and the sharp, fiery agony attacking his hand has him drawing it close to his chest. He might as well be shining a fucking distress beacon, what with the pathetic, kicked-puppy look that comes over his brother's face.

Sam swallows roughly and sinks back to sit on the edge of the bed, bobbing his head as he digests that information, and the implications. "And whatever happened to Henry…it's happening to you now."

"Looks like." With a sigh, Dean crams his aching hand into his jeans pocket and leans on a shoulder against the wall.

"So what – what are you saying, Dean? Are you hurt? Or…or sick?"

"Or screwed even more than I already was?" Dean supplies with a smirk, though Sam doesn't seem to find the humor. He looks horrified, jaw open in disgust, and Dean drops his gaze to the floor. "Something like that."

He sags under the weight of his brother's scared, concerned scrutiny, and slips a bit against the wall. When he tries to straighten, the world drops out from under him.

All of a sudden, Dean has no idea which way's up or down, whether Sammy's still in the room, or what the hell room he's even in. There isn't much sensation to be deciphered beyond the fiery tear in his hand, the broken glass ripping apart everything inside his chest as he struggles to draw a breath.

No. There's…something. Voices, too many to isolate and focus on one, and layered in ways that his sluggish and overworked mind can't really make sense of. He thinks he maybe hears Sam shouting his name, a too-brief yell he tries to grab hold of and can't.

_"This entire mission was off the books. We can't call the others for help."_

A low declaration, deliberately calm.

_"I'm sorry, Henry."_

And then a much lighter, inviting, decidedly female voice. An intriguing cadence, the kind he'd follow around a crowded bar to get a glimpse of its owner, but he can't tell what the singsong voice is saying.

An image of a young boy flashes in his mind, with dark hair and wide eyes, and something about his familiar face tugs at the most delicate strings of Dean's weary heart.

The face fades away, and there's hard, cold ground against his back, fuzzy, too-bright stars spinning overhead. A cool hand trails along the side of his face, and the sweet, singsong-y voice is back.

_"Go fetch."_

"Dean!"

Dean sucks back a long, desperate pull of air that sends the voices and images scattering back to their respective corners. His brother's palm thumps against his heaving chest, and there's a frantic hoarseness to Sam's shout that makes it seem like he's been calling for Dean for at least a few minutes.

"Hey," Sam croaks when Dean manages to work his eyes open. "You with me?"

He nods, tries to pat the arm attached to the fist that's currently twisted in the collar of his shirt, but his own hand is shaking too badly for the gesture to be as reassuring as intended. Dean braces a palm against the short carpet and moves to shove himself further upright, but his brother puts the kibosh on that effort rather quickly, keeping him pinned easily to the floor.

Sam's eyes are wide, boyish in their fright and worry. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know," Dean forces out, words running together and tripping over each other.

Sam can't seem to make up his mind. He starts tugging his brother upright, which makes the room do all sorts of strange things, and Dean tries to push him away as soon as he makes it to his feet.

"I got it," he protests, probably dumbly. "I'm okay." He's hardly aware of his own voice in the din swirling in his head, the pound of his own heartbeat, a high-pitched ringing in his ears. He rolls his shoulder and tries to shake his brother away, stumbles sideways and slams his hip into the bureau. His vision blurs and he blinks fiercely when he maybe sees that Sammy-looking little boy standing in the corner of the room.

"Okay," Sam says tightly, gripping him under the arm. "Off your feet."

"D'you see him?" Dean slurs, then coughs, then presses his lips together as the room spins like a carnival ride and a wave of nausea crashes over him.

"Dean, I don't see anything." Clipped and frustrated, and just maybe grazing the edge of hysteria.

If Dean didn't know any better, he'd say his brother is getting pretty damn sick and tired of this whole song and dance.

Sam manhandles him in the direction of the beds and helps him get settled against the mattress, and once Dean's down he can't imagine forcing his body vertical again. Maybe ever.

The room lurches and the ceiling spins, and the last dregs of his energy are suddenly redirected toward not puking all over himself.

He struggles to follow Sam's movements as his brother frets around the room, redistributing the blankets and pillows in an attempt to make Dean more comfortable and giving his troublesome hand some closer inspection. The entire time he's muttering under his breath, things like _stubborn_ and _martyr._ Then he crouches next to the bed to collect some vitals, and his tone changes on a dime.

"Jesus," Sam breathes, dropping Dean's wrist. "Okay. Okay." He sets his jaw as he slips into Answer Man mode. "This is fine," he says, though his voice catches. "This will be fine. Henry survived this, and that means you will, too." He drags a hand down his face. "We'll just…hole up here, let it run its course." A neat, clinical way to say that things are probably going to get very, very bad.

Dean bark a rough, humorless laugh that nearly chokes him. _Sure_ , he supposes dizzily. He might survive this. But it ain't gonna be pretty. He's already burning up, skin too hot hot hot and feeling stretched tight across his aching, rattling chest. His eyes burn, and his oddly unmarked hand feels floaty and detached from the rest of his body.

"I'll check in with Cas, have him go through the bunker's records again if I have to, see if there's _anything_ there about something like this."

Dean nods, but he's not sure he could recite back what his brother has just said to him.

Sam squeezes his shoulder carefully, pleadingly, and it takes some time for Dean to roll his head that direction. "Just…try to get some rest, man."

He blinks up at the kid until he comes into focus. He hears Sam's voice and all of the words he's saying, but is having a tough time assigning them the proper significance. "What about you?"

"I'll be right here, Dean. I'm not going anywhere."

Even with Sam's permission to stand down, even with the pleas and demands of his increasingly sick body and abused mind, Dean fights the tug of illness, the pain bleating behind his eyes, the fire of fever coursing through his veins. He coughs miserably, smells copper.

Sam's not the only one feeling like he's just gotten reacquainted with his brother. Some things don't shake loose easily, and Dean can't stomach the thought of leaving Sam like a sitting duck, like he's still that gangly ten-year-old that grinned big and had to talk to every stranger and never stayed still when Dean told him to. Someone's out there, lurking, and just because they singled Dean out for these visions doesn't mean they won't grow bored waiting and move on to the next Winchester.

Because he fights it, oblivion comes for him that much more viciously, takes him out like a perfectly executed leg sweep.

But it doesn't last.

He dozes fitfully and unsatisfying, feeling weak and sick and alternating between unbearably hot and frigidly cold, twitching in distress and wanting to escape his own skin. His eyes blow open as pain makes itself known all over his body, hitting him in waves, a relentless assault that originates in his head and just won't fucking stop.

He's been thrashed, thoroughly, and even though he's a fast healer, even though the bruises have mostly faded from his grinding cheek and aching jaw, it doesn't mean that every damn word he utters hasn't been sending shockwaves through his face. The ribs are giving him a fair amount of hell anytime he's transitioning from sitting to standing, or standing to sitting, and that fall in New Orleans didn't do himself any favors. Probably set him back another week, at least. Not that Sam will ever know. Dean's gotten really good at hiding the worst parts of his injuries. Bruises and the rare break are hard to conceal, but the tears and strains on his very soul, the cracks in the foundation…that's what Sam can't ever know about. He's slipped a few times over the years, filled to the brim with stress and pain and things that no single human should be expected to hold within himself, and he's said things that there's no making the little emo geek forget.

_I'm tired, Sam. I'm tired of this job, this life…this weight on my shoulders, man. I'm tired of it._

He gets it, the hypocrisy of being _done_ more times than he can count but not allowing Sammy the same courtesy. But that's being a big brother, that's being responsible for someone other than yourself. He's tried a few times, but he doesn't really have a _Dean_ without a _Sam._

This pain is pulling out all the stops, is finding new and interesting ways to toy with his considerable threshold. What's happening in his head is vicious, hot, and stabbing. He doesn't want to move from this position, or open his eyes, or fucking _draw another breath_ , because it all _hurts._

The ache is his hand is matched by a fire in his marked back, a heat that travels a path up his neck and sends a searing lightning bolt straight through his left eye. And, fuck, if that's not the side of his face that's taken more than enough abuse already the past few days. Even his _teeth_ hurt.

He groans because he's _done,_ and can't bite it back, can't play tough guy for Sammy anymore.

Sam's on him in a flash, so either he was _right there_ the entire time or Dean's having a hard time keeping up with time as it's passing him by.

"Hey – hey, man. What do you need?"

What he needs is his brother to stop asking him so many goddamn questions, because the absolute last thing Dean wants to do right now is to answer goddamn questions about what he needs. What he needs is a loaded gun in his right hand right the hell now, because he can't think of anything else that's going to get rid of this unbelievable pain ripping through his head.

He communicates all of this by wrinkling his nose – he thinks – but Sam seems to get the message as clearly as if he'd shouted it in his puppy-eyed face. Little brother backs away, softly saying, "Okay, okay."

_Yes_ , Dean thinks. _That._ His head is a circus of OW, his pulse pressing against his eye in a way that's really going to present a serious problem in the next few minutes. He closes his eyes and forces steady breathes through his nose, wills the pain in his head and back and hand to give it a fucking rest already. A spasm rips from his head through the rest of his body, stokes the fire in his bruised hip and side and he looses a growling noise of pain he can't hold back.

Sam's back at the sound, a giant hand gripping his knee in an attempt to ground him through the waves of pain attacking every inch of his body.

"Dude, I think I should try to get Cas here."

Dean bites his lip, shakes his head. The motion rebounds, like his battered, abused brain is shifting long after he stills his body. He opens his mouth to launch an argument against the thought, and nearly loses his precarious grip on the world.

Sam's there, is _always_ there, with the hands and the good intentions, and he starts manhandling Dean into what he probably thinks is a more comfortable position, but the way he folds Dean's leg sort of nags that rib, and the splashes of burgundy bruising all along his right side that he hasn't clued Sam in on.

"Dean," Sam starts again, his tone all serious and Serious Sam is one of the worst ones to try to reason with. "I really think I should ask Cas to come."

"M'okay," Dean grits. "Just gimme something."

Sam disappears from his eyeline, and Dean drifts off again before he returns.

He has vivid dreams – nightmares – of the same horrible things that have haunted his sleep since they released the Darkness, with the added bonus of a dangerously high fever burning through his body and wreaking havoc with his already fragile mind. His subconscious is subjected to an endless line of those he's hurt and those he's failed to protect. Those he's killed. Their faces are wounded and questioning, distorted by the fire of his illness.

There's Rudy, the poor son of a bitch who came across Dean on the worst of his worst days, and Charlie. _God_ , Charlie.

Sam, on his knees, waiting to die. An image he might never be able to scrub free of his mind.

But his shortcomings go back further than the Mark of Cain, and his mental defenses have worn too thin to keep the floodwaters at bay.

Dad.

Ellen, and Jo.

Pamela. Frank.

Bobby.

_Tell me how it's fair. You get saved from Hell – I die. Why do you deserve another chance, Dean?_

And Victor Hendrickson, angry and wronged and still asking what they all deserve to know. The answer comes to Dean with a brutal sort of clarity as he breaks the surface of consciousness.

_I don't._

*******************************************************************************

"I don't know, Cas." Sam rubs his forehead, blearily blinking at the single-serve coffeemaker across the room as it begins its unnecessarily noisy task of brewing him another cup of hot, bitter motor oil. He'd run down to the end of the block for something more drinkable, but at this point in the game he's looking for caffeine, not taste. "He hasn't really been able to give me much to work with. Just something about a book."

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He could really do without searching for another damn book right now. It was a book that made him lie to his brother. It was a book that got Charlie killed.

That's a thought that might help Sam sleep at night, but there isn't much truth to it. A book didn't get Charlie killed. He did.

_"This entire bunker is filled with books, Sam."_

"Yeah," he clips in response, frustration and lack of caffeine getting the better of him. "I know."

_"Okay. I'll, uh, I'll see what I can find."_

"Thanks." Sam drops his phone to the table, rubs his forehead. He should have told Cas exactly how bad things were getting on this end, but he couldn't possibly be expected to put Dean's pain into words. He should have asked Castiel how he was doing, but didn't, falling back into the single-minded focus that had driven him down alleys he'd never thought of pursuing when fighting the damn Mark of Cain off his brother.

He turns his head and watches Dean thrash under the covers, listens to the grunts and groans that his aggressively stoic brother can't suppress in his currently fevered and unconscious state, sick as he's ever been with nothing Sam can identify.

The cough was just the beginning – a deep, rough, frightening sound reminiscent of that time Dean had come down with the flu in high school and it turned the corner toward pneumonia before Dad got home. His breathing shallow, raspy and irregular, quick little pants that whistle as they go in and groan like rusty plumbing on the way out.

He stopped coughing an hour or so after Sam got him settled into bed, lips and chin splattered with blood, watery drips along the pillowcase next to his cheek. Sam found himself half a second to suck back a relieved breath, before his brother loosed a tight sound of agony and attempted to curl into a ball atop the mattress.

The pain didn't seem to have a specific place of origin, but spread through his brother's entire body. Sam couldn't even place a comforting hand on Dean's arm without drawing a cry from his brother that twisted his heart in his chest. It was _inside_ , currents of pain traveling through his arms and legs, rebounding in his chest and tugging on each and every rib bone.

Sam had nearly tugged out his hair, on the verge of calling Cas in for another possibly doomed attempt to heal Dean of this curse and very seriously debating bundling his brother into the backseat and hauling ass for the nearest emergency room, when the pain seemed to fade away as swiftly as it came on, and a dangerous fever swooped in to take its place.

He realizes now that he truly is going to have to ride this out, and begins the frantic, desperate repetition of _Henry survived this_ in his head.

The fever doesn't obey any of the rules Sam's grown up with, that he's counted out. He pulls out every move in the playbook, every tactic he learned the hard way, from watching his father or brother fight off a half-dozen nasty infections.

Nothing works, and his brother continues to burn alive in his own body.

Sam adjusts ice packs and drops a palmful of crushed Tylenol into a glass of water and reminds himself that Henry made it through this, and they just have to wait it out. And he feels like the biggest piece of shit on the planet.

His brother's sweaty head rolls against his pillow, and he lets loose a string of incomprehensible sounds that tighten Sam's stomach and squeeze his heart like a vice, but it's been hours since he really surfaced.

Halfway through the night, Sam can't take it anymore. He nearly trips in his haste to reach his brother's side, and grips Dean's shoulder, gives him a shake that's equal parts caution and desperation. "Hey, man. Dean. Wake up."

Dean draws in a rattling breath, blinks himself awake to stare groggily at Sam. "What's wrong?" he asks, a breathy, cracked whisper.

"Nothing," Sam says, feeling a surge of guilt. "Just…how you doing, man?"

"Mm," his brother grunts, a sound that tells Sam absolutely nothing.

"Okay," Sam whispers. "Yeah. Just…go back to sleep." He sits back on his heels, waits for Dean's breath to even out. He lays the back of his hand along his brother's forehead, winces from the heat there.

At first, he's just wrung out and just desperate enough to believe his brother's just managed to drift back to sleep.

But Dean's muttering softly – choked, rasping pleas of sorrow interlaced with his low growls of pain – and Sam drops his head into his hands, pushes trembling fingers through his hair as he's forced to listen.

_Henry survived this_ , he tells himself, over and over, with tears of stress and exhaustion stinging in his eyes and Dean struggling for each breath across the room.

_It looks worse than it is. It sounds worse than it is._

_He'll be okay._

***************************************************************************

_As soon as he realizes he's conscious, it's obvious there's some time that's unaccounted for.  
Dean's got good, sharp instincts, and is usually aggressively aware of his surroundings, and it definitely feels like a couple of hours, at least, have passed since…_

_He screws up his nose, or at least he thinks he does, and struggles to remember the last clear thing he can._

_He was in a dive-y little bar that Sam would give him a professional level of shit over, the one with trendy mixed drinks and packed to the walls with twenty-three-year-olds, trying to drown out his dreary thoughts with aggressively loud – if not annoyingly twangy – music and a few tall glasses of the local IPA. He was already feeling a little buzzy from the pain meds and the empty stomach, and there was a gorgeous, insistent girl pressed close to his side. He knows he turned her down, which might be worthy of a Sam Winchester Gold Medal of Morality. And then…nothing._

_He's moving, or more accurately, being moved, but his ears are ringing and his senses are shot to hell and his surroundings are slow to come into focus, so he interprets what he can, as he can. He hurts, in a way that screams that his body's been through the sort of trauma that completely negates the relief and fug of a few prescription-grade painkillers. Everything's on fire except the lower half of his face, which feels disturbingly numb, his lips tingly._

She did something to my drink.

_He tries to open his mouth, to protest the manhandling currently underway, but his head is pounding, and swimming, and the only sound that escapes his tingling lips is a dry, abused squawk. A cool breeze slaps at his cheeks, and it…actually feels kinda nice against the side of his face that's been recently pulverized. He can't hear anything past the ringing in his ears, and can't focus enough to see where the hell he is._

_He's being forcefully relocated, kept upright and dragged along in a clinical, detached way, by decidedly uninterested hands. He tries to pull away and force his gumby legs to take on his own weight, but as soon as he takes a single step his knee buckles, sending him to the ground with a jolt he feels like in every already wrecked corner of his body._

_There's a curse above his head, a sigh of frustration. One of the disinterested hands shifts, adjusts the grip around his back and fire tears down his back like claws dragging down a sunburn._

_A strangled, tortured sounds breaches the film that seems to be covering Dean's ears, and he realizes too late that the sound has come from him._

_He's dropped suddenly and unceremoniously, and figures he must have really done something to piss Sammy off. That's what makes the most sense; Sam came and found him in that bar, or maybe the husky dude behind the counter found his brother's number in his phone after he started a fight, because that's how he feels. Like he picked a fight he had no business starting, with a pack of younger, scrappier guys that thrashed his old man ass. It sounds like him, and that sort of behavior would certainly piss off his brother._

_But there's still something that feels off, because Dean's been annoying and sloppy before, plenty of times, but Sammy always goes the other way, trading his big brother's gross drunkenness and slurred, half-meant insults for overbearing care and concern. Because Dean can stomach the pain and the mistreatment just fine. It's the other stuff he has a problem with._

_The hard, unforgiving ground catches him as he topples over, drives the air from his lungs and jostles the bruised, broken bits that Castiel left behind. All of his senses come screaming back, in stereo. He hisses, and thinks the throbbing in his face might be enough to make him vomit, but the cold wind in his face stems the need, and he sucks desperately at the chilly air._

_"Don't be such a baby, Winchester."_

Shit. That's not Sammy.

_A hand cups his cheek – the non-busted one – and a light, feathery voice whispers in his ear. "Now go fetch."_

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> "Dean, I don't see anything."
> 
> A giant hand grips his knee in an attempt to ground him through the waves of pain attacking every inch of his body.
> 
> _Tell me how it's fair. You get saved from Hell – I die. Why do you deserve another chance, Dean?_


	18. Chapter Seventeen

Dean surfaces at regular intervals and takes in the room, his blurry, mostly worthless eyes going immediately to wherever Sam is. His little brother has been his point of reference for as long as he can remember, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. No thought, no plan, not a damn thing in this godforsaken world makes sense until he knows where Sammy is.

But he can't keep a firm grip on consciousness, and the guard stationed at the doorway of his subconscious seems to have decided to take an ill-timed smoke break, allowing all sorts of shit to slip through the cracks. He falls back into violent, feverish nightmares mixed with disjointed visions, flashes of familiar scenes playing on repeat and one right after another.

This detour wasn't part of the plan; Seeing Dad, and whatever that vision in the house did to him. They've veered off-course, and are definitely pissing off whoever's at the controls here.

Dean can feel the mounting anger – the frustration – in the rapid succession of images assaulting his mind and taking over his senses.

_"And if the…finds the book? Then what?"_

_"Come now, Henry. Where's your sense of adventure?"_

_A sharp bite into his palm as the panel comes loose. He holds his hand aloft, squinting at the bright bloom of blood welling there, in the fleshy spot below his thumb._

_"Easy there, Henry," as he tumbles out of the car._

_A muddy far-off sound. "This entire mission is off the book. They can't help us."_

Everything in his head bleeds together like watercolor paints, sensations blending seamlessly in his mind – the _then_ pain and the _now_ pain and the pain that was never really his to begin with, but cuts deep all the same.

He relives this entire shit show of a week in a fevered dream state – the bar and the music and the whiskey and the girl, the white-hot flash of pain in his back and being dumped on the cold, hard ground like a bag of garbage.

Phantom aches plague his joints as he remembers every hit he gave with the Mark, and every hit he took in that warehouse, jerking at the memory of Castiel's knuckles cracking against his head and face like hunks of goddamn concrete.

A boyish squeal of laughter sounds, as though from off in the distance, yet somehow also from right beside him.

Dean winces from the sound, once more startling awake, but Sam doesn't seem to notice.

The walls of the motel room slip and slide as he blinks, shifting from smooth painted taupe to dark, cracked stone, and Dean figures the only explanation is that he must have finally met his match in this spell and gone the route of whackado Martin Creaser. Or maybe he's just not strong enough to outlast it.

He was stronger with the Mark of Cain.

He was a blood-drenched ticking time bomb, a volatile, unpredictable _dick_ , but he was _stronger._

He blinks furiously, desperate to clear his vision, to force these thoughts away. His tired, watery eyes find a lazily spinning mobile over his head, and despite the fact he _knows_ it's just the spell and his mind screwing with him, the dangling airplanes seem to catch in the lamplight, casting oddly-shaped shadows on the motel room walls.

_The motel._

_Sammy._

Dean grabs a hold of that thought and clings to it, and the mobile fades away.

Across the room, Sam's head finally comes up. He frowns around the room, slowly turning his attention to his brother. "Dean?"

Dean licks dry lips, tries to tell his brother everything that's happening in his head, to gain some assurance that none of it is real, but before he gets a single word out, the curtain comes down again and cuts him off from Sam.

The mattress beneath him feels different, thin and flat and itchy. The room around him smaller, dimmer, and there's no comfort to be found here. Only an unescapable fiery sensation twisting through his limbs, originating from his wounded hand. The heat coils and curves like a snake, making its way toward his aching, tight-feeling chest, his already abused back.

_"Henry!"_

The pain is Dean's but not, and there's no longer any drawing a line between the two. He coughs as he looks down at the hand in question and his vison flickers, splicing images of his own unmarred palm with Henry's swollen, inflamed one. Watery blood leaks from the pinprick hole to spot the sheets, but when he blinks, the blood is gone, the sheets clean beneath his fingers.

He leverages up, gasps as pain rips through his chest, and there's a third hand – his brother's – slapping Dean's away and forcing him to raise his chin and meet Sam's eyes.

"Whoa, hey, lay back, man." Sam's voice is warbled, doesn't quite match up right with his moving lips. "Look at me, Dean. Stay with me."

Dean frowns, fidgets uncomfortably. He was already halfway to somewhere and he wants very much to crawl out of his own skin, but all he can think is, _where the hell else am I gonna go?_

****************************************************************************

_Henry survived this_ , Sam keeps telling himself, pretending that means _anything._ It should, but it's hard for him to believe that precedence counts for jack shit right now, when it never really has before.

Dean shivers, a full-body tremor that lifts him from the mattress and wrests a low, uncharacteristic keen from the back of his throat, and Sam tells himself, _Henry survived this._

Dean stops responding to the sound of Sam's voice, something that's really only ever happened once before – _Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don't want to be fixed? Just let me go live my life. I won't bother you._ – and lies there listlessly, frighteningly still, staring at the middle distance of the room. Sam tells himself, _Henry survived this._

Dean starts calling for Dad in a small, broken voice, and Sam swallows a lump the size of one of his worthless textbooks, and tells himself, _Henry survived this._

They've been on the good and the wrong side of magic, been hexed and cursed and poisoned and threatened and every damn thing in between, but there was always an answer to be found. In the very least, someone or something to shoot at until the problem more or less resolved itself.

The unknown source of this entire unfortunate adventure hangs over his head like a massive dark cloud threatening a havoc-wreaking storm, one that's going to bring his house down and leave nothing but the foundation. Except Sam's foundation is his brother, and his brother's strength, and a fucking fever is bleeding that right out of Dean, soaking it into the sheets.

He toys once more with the thought of cramming Dean's unresponsive limbs into the backseat of the Impala and hauling ass for the nearest emergency room, but that feels too much like admitting something that he's nowhere near ready to admit – won't _ever_ be ready to admit – and there's nothing any medical professional can do for his brother, anyway.

They're on their own here.

He monitors his brother's vitals, takes notes and keeps up with the ice packs, the Tylenol. Every now and then Dean blinks himself awake, sluggishly surveys the room until his eyes land on Sam, but he quickly fades away again. "Come on, man," he pleads, voice raw and choked with emotion. "Don't do this to me."

He just got his brother back. Literally _just_ got him back, from where he'd been so precariously dangled over the edge of something there'd be no coming back from. It's been a year and a half – a damn _year and a half_ since Sam was himself, and his brother was himself, and far longer than that since they were working together the way they work best.

He'll tear this world apart to save his brother, sacrifice himself to keep Dean alive, and the worst kick of all is that Sam knows Dean _doesn't_ know that.

A clap of thunder booms out in the still night, rocking the room and setting the framed artwork thunking against the plaster walls. Sam hadn't realized it started raining, but he doesn't startle; he's had a lifetime of conditioning and preparation for loud, random noises in the night. The thunder rattles the windowpane for a long moment, takes its time rumbling down the strip of motel rooms. He drops his hand from his chin and cocks his head in the direction of the window, narrowing his eyes at the next flash of lightning, the glimpse of raindrops pounding the glass, and figures a violent autumn storm is about par for the course.

The hand his brother's been favoring remains free of any visible evidence of injury or infection, but even the lightest touch against his palm has Dean pulling away and writhing in pain.

Sam's wrapped the offensive hand in loose gauze, though it's probably more to make himself feel better than provide any helpful care for his brother. He's contacted Cas at the bunker and curtly ordered the angel to change gears and turn his research in the direction of magical and mystical infections, which they've encountered before. He thinks of the ghost sickness that nearly stopped Dean's heart, or, hell, even improperly cleaned Hellhound wounds can turn bad incredibly fast. But each and every time, they've bounced back, and Sam has to hold out hope that things will turn out the same now.

Has to keep telling himself, _Henry survived this._

But they've been through the wringer lately, been taking shots from every angle, and he can't remember the last time his brother looked so down. So beaten, physically and in every other conceivably way.

It's been over a week since a cursed Castiel laid into Dean, but it feels like it was yesterday. That's a feeling less likely owing to the fact Sam's hardly slept since then, and more to the fact there's still more than enough evidence of the beating coloring Dean's face, a mottled mess of faint purples and browns surrounded by a larger patch of yellow.

He'd be concerned by the fact there are still bruises to be seen, but Dean's had contusions before that hung on this long. Longer. Sam flexes the fingers of his right hand, gazes down at his knuckles. Dangerous knuckles, that had marked his brother's face but good. It might not have been Sam behind the wheel, but that's not a distinction that makes him feel any better about the damage inflicted. The bruises Meg had used Sam to give Dean lasted nearly two full weeks, just in case Sam accidentally forgot.

Dean's growing weaker by the day, possibly by the hour and definitely by the vision, and he hadn't been at the top of his game when this whole thing started. Each time this twisted spell digs into Dean to show him the next piece of the puzzle, it's tearing away a piece of him to do it, and Sam isn't sure how many more pieces his brother can spare.

Dean grunts and shifts a bit in bed, but doesn't truly surface this time.

Sam waits for his eyes to drift closed, then stands with a _creak_ from the chair.

It's not that he's scared.

He's just collecting his thoughts, just splashing some cold water on his face – that's all. Watching his brother struggle and suffer through this supernatural illness, through this total, terrifying mindfuck – it's been rough, and he's just granting his brother some privacy, a few quiet minutes to drift back to sleep. Or as close to sleep as Dean can manage right now.

Sam shuts off the tap and gropes blindly for a hand towel to pat his face dry, but the silence on the other side of the bathroom door freezes him in his place.

Because Dean is movement, and noise. He is riotous calamity, a cacophony of bangs and shouts and curses. He's loud when he eats, walks, and drives. When he sleeps.

Even through the course of this hellish night, he's been inadvertently vocal about his pain and discomfort, a torturous stream groans and grunts and hisses that twist Sam's heart into knots. No details of what's plaguing his mind, just awful sounds of pain.

Dean is never silent. Not unless he's…

Sam pushes the door open with dripping fingers, leaves tracks of water beading down the painted wood. "Dean?"

But the room is empty. The front door stands open, giving way to a light breeze that tosses the curtains and flips the wrinkled pages of Sam's notepad where he'd left it out on the table.

_Shit._

_Shit, shit, SHIT._

Sam crosses the motel room in long, heavy strides, straight out of the open door and onto the sidewalk. "Dean!" he calls, chest heaving as he uncharacteristically calls attention to their presence in the world.

Another chilly, rain-smelling gust of autumn air _whooshes_ past, shifting Sam's hair and rustling the loose branches of the untrimmed bushes the separate the motel parking lot from the sidewalk where he stands. The Impala sits cool and quiet, rainwater beading on the gleaming hood. The stoplight at the corner reflects in the rippling puddles that have collected in the potholes, green to yellow to red. Cars whiz through the intersection, and an impatient driver honks. A child laughs and a door slams, somewhere along the line of rooms behind him.

There's no sign of his brother.

****************************************************************************

He comes to with a mouthful of dirt, and no idea where he is. No idea where _Sam_ is.

Dean's roaring, confused, huge-feeling head attempts to remedy every problem in one swift go, as he coughs out a hoarse, gritty, "Sammy?" A tickle at the back of his throat leaves him gagging, and something coppery and warm splashes against his lips. A drip of blood mixes with the dirt beneath his face, creating a foul, cakey paste that settles on his tongue and chokes him as he tries again to call out for his brother.

Things are fuzzy, and he's not _quite_ sure where he was when the starting gun went off, but he couldn't have gotten very far. Or Dean's sense of time might just be massively fucked right now, because in the span of a single blink his brother appears seemingly from nowhere, white-faced and falling to his knees in the dirt.

Sam releases a repetitive, rapid-fire litany of _hey_ and _what the fuck, man_ as he paws at Dean's head and shoulders and back in a manner that no part of his trembling body appreciates.

There's a jagged edge of rock or twig biting into his cheek, and Dean slowly and painfully shifts his arms until his hands are up near his head, then attempts to leverage himself up from his incredibly uncomfortable position on the hard ground. A sheet of white goes up in his field of vision, followed swiftly by black, and when he next peels his eyes open he's flat on his back and staring up at the stars, little white lights that are far, far away but much too bright for his aching eyes.

He screws up his nose and squeezes his eyes shut, can't hear _shit_ over the pounding in his skull. "Sam," he tries again, and has no way of knowing if he manages it out loud. Something's swiping at his mouth and cheek and eyes – all of the places that feel like they're on fucking FIRE.

It's too much to keep up with, and he's fading in a very serious sort of way. Then he hears, clear as a bell and with a puff of warm breath against his ear: "On three, okay?"

He doesn't catch the count, but he certainly feels it when his brother starts in with the shoving and the pulling as Sam manages to haul him to his feet. He wavers unsteadily once he's upright, and Sam dips under an arm, takes on most of Dean's weight for himself as he drags him toward…well, wherever the hell.

It feels like hours before Dean finds the car with his hip, and he melts against the familiar curve of cool metal. Sam seems okay with it, just maneuvers him a little to get the door popped open, and then pushes Dean to topple across the bench seat. He's being mostly gentle, but is in an obvious hurry as he folds Dean's unresponsive legs inside and there's a pair of perfectly matched creaks as one door shuts and the opposite opens. As he falls into the Impala, Sam says some gibberish Dean can't translate, pats his shoulder, and starts the car.

Dean's eyes fall closed to the faraway-sounding growl of his baby's engine, and he's unaware of anything else for some time. Then Sam's back in his face, and starts in again with the tugging and the pulling and the saying things he can't make out, and the jerk back to semi-awareness is a violent sensory overload, a nauseating swirl of colors he can't isolate or focus on, and he's not sure if it's him or the world that's spinning but his feet are no longer under him.

His brother's breathy "almost there" somehow breaks through the din, and Sam's gripping him under the arm tightly enough to bruise; the sort of strength that's only called upon in special circumstances, when he has to carry both of them. Sam hauls him bodily across the strobing motel room, and Dean's stomach and pounding head are slow in catching up.

***************************************************************************

Sam stands on the brakes when he spots his brother a couple blocks from the motel, wrests a headslap-worthy squeal from the tires. Dean is a dark, huddled mass in the middle of an empty lot, surrounded by scatters of trash and glittering edges of broken glass.

Sam couldn't have left him alone for more than a few _minutes._ As he throws himself out of the Impala, he thanks his brother's dumb lucky stars that he wasn't hit by a car as he stumbled over here.

Dean's face-down in the dirt, semi-conscious, writhing and making some truly awful sounds of distress. Sounds of pain that Sam hasn't had the displeasure of hearing wrung from his brother in…maybe ever.

He crashes to his knees on the ground next to his brother's shoulder and starts making reflexive, panicked demands the man can't possibly be in a position to answer. "What the hell, Dean? Hey, Dean, man, what the fuck was that? Hey. _Dean._ Look at me."

His brother tilts his head, lifts his chin, but gives no indication that he's actually hearing Sam. His pupils are blown to hell, his focus shot, and he's shivering despite the frightening heat coming off him in palpable waves. There's a crimson stain on his lips, and a shallow slice on his cheek leaking a track of blood down the curve of his jawline.

Dean slowly drags his hands up through the dirt, flattens his palms on either side of his face and stubbornly attempts to push up from the ground. He manages to lever up a couple of inches, then his eyes roll up and his face goes the kind of scary stark-white that's visible in the dark.

Sam reacts, grips the collar of his brother's plaid shirt in just enough time to prevent him from smacking the dirt nose-first. He quickly, gently rolls Dean onto his back, and doesn't draw a breath until his brother opens his eyes and sucks back a rattling gasp of his own. "Sam."

"There ya go." Somewhat shakily, he reaches out a hand to wipe the blood from Dean's face. He swipes his bloody palm along his jeans as he leans in, giving Dean the best chance of hearing him. "On three, okay? One, two – " On _three_ , he tugs his brother upright, lets out an _oof_ as he's smacked in the face with a reminder of how _heavy_ the guy is.

He drags a limp arm over his shoulder and gets a grip on Dean's belt loop, hauls him all the way to his feet. Dean's legs are moving but Sam can't honestly say whether there's any intention in the motion, if his brother's trying to help cross the short distance to the waiting Impala, or if he's even aware the car is there. He props Dean against the front panel and his brother immediately succumbs to gravity, slipping against the metal. Sam keeps him upright with a firm hand against his chest, shifts him just enough to get the door propped open.

He pushes Dean down onto the seat, rearranges his brother's too-liable limbs until he's tucked completely inside the car. Throughout the entire ordeal, Dean's mumbling a constant but incoherent string of sounds, a low hum like from a white noise machine.

Sam drops behind the wheel, swallows roughly and runs a hand along the well-worn leather. Beside him, Dean is pale and drawn, face pinched in pain and blood smeared along his cheek and chin. "This is gonna be okay, Dean," he says, with a traitorous crack in his voice. "We're gonna get through this." He grips his brother's shoulder and gives him what he hopes is a reassuring shake, then starts the car.

Dean drifts on the short ride back to the motel, temple tipping against the window and sliding along the glass as Sam takes the turn back into the parking lot.

"That's – that's okay, man. S'probably for the best." Sam swallows, thumps the heel of his hand against the steering wheel in helpless frustration. "Dammit," he mutters to himself as he jerks the Impala to a stop outside their room. He pockets the keys and exits the car in a rush of limbs.

When he wrenches the passenger door open, Dean nearly comes tumbling out to the pavement. Sam gets a shoulder in his brother's chest, keep him off the ground. "We're almost there, man." He twists, reestablishes a good grip on Dean and prepares to wrangle him into the room. "Almost there."

This time, there's no question about it – Dean isn't doing a damn thing to help him. He blacks out before he lands atop the bed, and Sam sends his brother a quiet thank you.

Because Dean's heavy, but remarkably compliant while unconscious.

****************************************************************************

He must black out for a bit, clearly loses some time because when he next blinks himself awake he's on his back again, on something much softer than the ground or the bench in the Impala. Sam's clear across the room from the sound of it, speaking to someone in a hushed tone that Dean's not sure is entirely for his benefit. His brother's voice is low and growly, like he gets when he's been pushed to the end of his considerable rope. "I don't know, Cas."

_Cas?_ Cas is supposed to be ridin' the pine on this one. Poor sonuvabitch ain't in any condition to be outta the bunker.

"Well, Dean, I could really say the same for you."

Great. Now he can't even tell what he's thinking and what he's saying out loud.

"Everything, Dean. You're saying everything out loud." Sam's voice is pitched high, thick with adrenaline and stress. "Seriously, Cas, whatever is happening to him…it's like it's boiling his brain, and he can't even keep his own thoughts in his head anymore. What the hell am I supposed to do about that? What if this is different than what Henry went through?"

Sam says _different_ but Dean hears what he really means, hears _worse_ , and that's a concern that seems warranted because, yeah, this entire thing has turned to shit pretty damn quickly, and they don't really make Band-Aids for brains.

"Dean, please. For the love of God – just, rest. Okay?"

Dean frowns. "Whassa matter, Sammy?" That, he manages okay, knows the words are coming out of his mouth, slip past his chattering teeth.

"What's the _matter_ , Dean? The matter is you're scaring the hell out of me and I'm not sure how to fix this."

The concoction of raw honesty, desperation, and exhaustion in his brother's voice is more than enough to loosen Dean's last precarious grip on consciousness and send him careening off the cliff into oblivion.

********************************************************************************

"Come on, Dean," Sam pleads with his brother, who goes still and unresponsive sometime around dawn. His eyes are open, mostly, but dull and faraway, staring once more into the middle distance. Seeing things that Sam can't. He drags his chair right to the edge of the bed and grips his brother's white hand in his own, tries until his throat is raw to coax a response from Dean.

They sit that way for a while, for more than an hour, before Dean's entire body suddenly tenses in a scary way that stops Sam's heart, and then he goes boneless, collapses against the mattress like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

Sam keeps one trembling hand wrapped tightly around his brother's arm as he reaches for Dean's neck with the other, almost cries when he's met with the steady _thump_ of a pulse, and skin relatively cool to the touch.

Dean blinks, long and slow, and he rolls his head toward Sam's hand on his arm.

"Hey, man," Sam says shakily, with a grin that feels too wide for his face.

"Hey," Dean rasps. He winces, clears his throat. "You look like crap."

"Right back atcha."

Dean's brows raise in exhausted acknowledgement, then his eyes close on a low exhale, and Sam leans in close to ensure his brother is still breathing.

He is, a steady, relaxed pattern that's a welcome reprieve from the whistling struggle for air that's occurred through most of the night. And what's more, the fever seems to be gone, as swiftly as it came on.

Sam frowns, experimentally pinches the fleshy part of his slumbering brother's palm. There's no reaction. "Okay," he says quietly to himself, nodding like an idiot in an empty room. "That's good, man. Get some rest. You deserve it."

His own exhaustion chooses that moment to smack him across the face with a two-by-four of _sit your ass down_ , and Sam falls backward into his chair, doesn't move for a long while.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines used in this chapter:
> 
> Dean is movement, and noise. He is riotous calamity, a cacophony of bangs and shouts and curses. He's loud when he eats, walks, and drives. When he sleeps.
> 
> The jerk back is a violent sensory overload, a nauseating swirl of colors he can't isolate or focus on, and he's not sure if it's him or the room that's spinning but his feet are no longer under him.
> 
> Because Dean's heavy, but remarkably compliant while unconscious.
> 
> "You're scaring the hell out of me and I'm not sure how to fix this."


	19. Chapter Eighteen

He has every intention of catching a couple hours of sleep while he has the opportunity; his mind and body are _screaming_ for it. But the stiff, cheap chair is awkward for his frame and unforgivingly hard against his back and ass and despite the fact Dean is doing better, Sam's stress remains at chest-tightening levels. Every time he relaxes enough to truly entertain the notion of sleep, he remembers the dangerous heat radiating from his brother, and hauling him limp and nearly unresponsive back to the motel. The worst of it might have passed, and this might have been just one more close call in a _long_ -ass line of close calls, but he's not grown numb to the anxiety of it.

Sam ends up spending the next couple of hours in much the same way the night had passed: testing the limits of the room's small coffeemaker and replaying the steps of the journey here as he watches his brother sleep. It appears to be restful enough; Dean doesn't seem to be in any obvious distress, isn't mumbling and kicking as he's caught in the throes of emotionally violent dreams, and in the dim room Sam can make out some color returning to his brother's face.

Halfway through his fourth cup of single-serve sludge, Dean stirs. He blinks long and slow at his brother for a concerning amount of time before awareness settles in and brightens his gaze and he rolls carefully to his back.

"Hey." Spurred on by a possibly dangerous amount of caffeine, Sam scoots forward eagerly, nearly kicking his paper cup where he's set it on the carpet. He reaches for his brother's arm, maybe squeezes harder than he means to. "Dean, hey."

Dean closes his eyes, groans. "I'm trying to sleep. Are you having a stroke?"

Sam grins and pats his brother's arm, relieved to hear the strength and snark in his voice. "No."

Dean grunts, brings up a slow hand to scrub at his eyes. "D'you sleep?"

Sam's gaze drops reflexively to his watch, and a laugh tickles his chest as he quickly calculates exactly how long he's been awake. "Not yet, no."

"Jesus, Sam." Dean exhales loudly, a characteristically disgruntled noise, and moves to seek higher ground, which is another _really_ good sign. He shoves into a seated position, and after a moment's pause to shift his shoulders and neck, swings his legs over the side of the bed. "What time is it?"

"Almost ten." Sam lifts his coffee cup from the floor and offers it to his brother, who wrinkles his nose. _Baby steps_ , he thinks, not discouraged, and takes a sip himself, making a face as he swallows. "How you feeling?"

Dean snorts. "Ask me something easier, like how to solve world hunger."

"Yeah, that's fair." Sam stands, eliciting a _pop_ or _creak_ from several of his joints, and drags his chair back across the room to its spot at the table, granting his brother some much-needed space before he launches the next question. He folds his arms across his chest. "How much do you remember?"

Dean doesn't answer right away, hunched over on the edge of the bed with an arm wrapped protectively around his middle, like a shield he shouldn't need when it's just them. He fixes a level, squinted gaze up at his brother. "About what?"

He's not playing dumb. And the protective stance, the guarded look in Dean's eyes mean that he remembers exactly enough to anticipate where this is going.

_You saw Dad?_

_Yeah, but it was…he was just a kid._

Things had gotten messy pretty much right after that admission of Dean's. It's been a tense, chaotic several hours and he hasn't had a chance to ask, but the thought, the question, the _need_ has been burning in Sam's mind just as that wretched fever had burned away in his brother's body. And if Dean's feeling well enough to have his guard up, then he's feeling well enough for Sam to ask.

Still, he starts small, and works to keep his frustration in check, forcibly reminding himself of the hell his brother's been through. "About anything that's happened over the past twenty-four hours?"

The corner of Dean's mouth lifts, a smartass _oh yeah_ that's missing any of its usual zip, and he brings up a hand to rub at the back of his head, makes a face at the greasy feel of his sweat-soaked hair. "I dunno. Not much. I remember you pawin' at me."

A half-assed accusation that really means _thanks._ If Sam hadn't gotten so fluent in Dean-speak, he'd be insulted and angered by his brother's words on an hourly freaking basis. "Had to, to keep your lame ass off the floor." _And in the damn room._

Dean lifts an eyebrow in acknowledgment, though a shadow falls over his face. He shifts uncomfortably, winces, and things fall into perspective for Sam.

His brother might have survived this hellish night, but he isn't entirely out of the woods yet, not really, and while he's certainly looking better, he's still not looking _great._ Sam stretches his arms and cracks his stiff back. "I'm gonna get you some food. Okay?" he adds, when Dean shows no sign that he's even heard Sam.

After a painfully long beat, Dean answers, "yeah." He screws up his nose, looks up at Sam with a frown. "No, Sam, you need to get some sleep. You've been up for, what?"

"It doesn't matter." Sam tries to mean it, but the mere suggestion of sleep has his body feeling slow and traitorously heavy. He grabs up his coat from the back of the chair, the keys from the tabletop, and moves toward the door. He thinks he remembers passing a diner on the way to the motel, what seems like a week ago, and wonders if they're serving lunch yet. "Burger?"

"Mm." Dean pales, but after a long swallow, nods gamely. "Sure."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

"I'll be here."

Sam pauses on the threshold, door held ajar and a light late-morning rain smacking the pavement behind him. "If you can stay awake long enough, we're having this conversation." He's past the point of pulling punches. He's exhausted, but so overly-caffeinated his eyeballs might be vibrating.

Dean bobs his head. "I know."

Sam crams the car keys into his pocket, taps his fingers on the doorframe. "If you can stand up long enough, think about a shower."

Dean lowers his chin, sniffs. He wrinkles his nose. "Oh, man."

"Yeah."

"I reek."

"I noticed."

"What the hell kind of nurse are you?"

"The kind that kept your ass alive." But he's not an idiot; the fact Dean's alive has absolutely nothing to do with Sam. His brother is still breathing only because Henry survived his own ordeal with this mysterious mystical poison sixty years ago. By all rights, his system should have crapped out on him hours ago.

"Well, thanks."

"Yeah."

*************************************************************************************

Sam's eagerness and good intentions far exceeded the willingness of Dean's stomach, which has seen pitifully little action lately. It protests barely halfway through the bacon cheeseburger his brother brings back for him. He leans against the headboard, lays his huge-feeling head back carefully.

Sam nods an approval at what he's managed to put down and sets his own sandwich to the side, wipes his hands with a paper napkin. Wipes his mouth. Takes a long, slow pull from his paper soda cup. Finally, he quits his fussing and his stalling, and looks Dean in the eye. "You really feeling better?"

"Yeah," Dean responds automatically. He's shaky and wrecked and his head still feels stuffed with cotton, and he never did manage that shower while the kid was getting lunch. He wants to put Sam's mind at ease and he's not thinking clearly, and he steps right into Sammy Winchester conversational quicksand. _Goddammit._ There's no walking this one back, and he can already see the hamster wheel spinning once more in his brother's giant head.

"Good." Sam breathes a relieved sigh. He clasps his hands together, drops his gaze to the floor like direct eye contact is going to be the reason Dean clamps down hard against spilling his guts. "So I know you probably don't want to talk about this – "

Dean huffs wearily, a bone-tired but not necessarily pissed sound.

"Yeah." Sam clearly knows he's treading in dangerous waters here, but he's also unable to stop himself. He raises his eyes, levels a bright, exhausted but excited gaze. "I just want to know...I mean, what did you see?"

He's not asking about the past twelve hours or so of sweat-soaked nightmares, or even whatever it was that had Dean stumbling half-out of his mind to collapse in an abandoned lot.

He's asking about Dad.

It was a shock to the system to see that young boy and to recognize him as John Winchester. But it probably shouldn't have been a surprise. Everything comes back to Dad, eventually. This entire decade-long journey he and Sam have been on together. Every dumbass decision either of them has made along the way can be traced back to some regrettable thing Dad said to them, some twisted belief he instilled, some self-destructive habit he drilled into them.

He's the one who led Dean to believe that lives and souls make fantastic bartering chips.

He's the one who taught Sam how to fight, how to identify and push every button his brother has and how to scream his lungs raw over what could otherwise be resolved with calm conversation. The one who ignited the fiery revenge that burned up a quarter of his twenties.

It was Dad who allowed Dean to believe he was the weak link in their family. Dad who put the weight of the world on his young son's shoulders, put unfair pressure on Dean his entire life and left him wounded and broken with a secret task that was nearly the final blow.

It was Dad who crafted them as hunters, raised them as soldiers, and flung them into a world of horror and nightmare instead of protecting them from it, who pushed too hard and too far until he pushed Sam right out the door. Who asked too much and gave too little and never told them what they needed to hear when they needed to hear it. Dad who Dean obeyed and respected and defended until he was blue in the face but has struggled to remember fondly in recent years.

But they aren't talking about Dad here. They're talking about a young, innocent boy who hasn't yet had the chance to make the mistakes their father will.

And none of it is fair. Not what's he's seen, not the look on his brother's face, and not what Sam's asking him to part with. What he's asking Dean to give up.

He's torn between raising hell and giving Sammy what he wants. This isn't a conversation he wants to have, not the one in which they talk about Dad like he wasn't exactly who he was. He loves his father, categorically, but he can't put the man back on the pedestal for the sake of his brother.

_Dad's dead. And he left a hole, and it hurts so bad you can't take it._

No question about it, Dean lost unquantifiable chunks of himself when he lost his father, floundered recklessly and barely kept his nose above water there for a while. He's spent the better part of the past decade painstakingly replacing the pieces inside that smacked of _John Winchester's son_ with whatever it means to be _Dean Winchester._

And in the briefest of moments, a glimpse of a small boy with wide, guiltless eyes…all that work was undone.

His relationship with his father had always been complicated, much more so than Sam ever gave either of them credit for, but never more complicated than after the man died. When those delicate, tattered threads of confidence and _blind faith_ in the man were pulled ragged by his own life experiences, by knowing now that Dad wasn't always right, that his way wasn't always the right way. When _it's called being a good son_ became _Dad was a selfish ass. You don't put crap like that on your kids._

When it became _I didn't deserve what he put on me._

It's happened slowly over the course of several years, and with the exception of an ill-advised slip here or there, Dean hasn't allowed Sam to see any of it. Just let the kid have his frustrated sighs and his pointed indignation with his closed-off, wise-cracking brother.

Dean rolls his eyes to the ceiling, exhales loudly. He knows he's going to crack, knows Sam won't have it any other way. "Sam…" He looses one last-ditch effort anyway, a soft, hoarse plea. _Please don't ask me to do this._

"It's Dad," Sam returns, a soft plea of his own.

It's a selfish line of questioning, but no more selfish than it is for Dean to want to keep what he's seen for himself. He was Sam's father, too.

"Was there…I mean, did you see anything else?" Sam prompts, because Dean's accidentally gone silent for far too long, again. "When…"

Dean works his jaw, tries to relieve some of the tension building in his neck. "Maybe," he relents. "It was, uh, kinda hard to tell what was what, to tell you the truth."

"I bet," Sam says, soft and with sympathy, but his eyes are glittering, and he's practically drooling.

Dean sighs. "Sammy…"

"I know it's asking a lot, man. I just – I just want to know, Dean. This isn't fair to you – I get that. But it's crazy to think that you might be getting to see what Dad was like as a kid."

"You mean instead of being an insufferable ass?" The words are out of his mouth before he realizes, like they were locked and loaded.

Sam recoils, looking wounded. "You don't mean that, Dean."

Whether or not he meant it, the times really have changed. There was once a time Dean would have hauled his little brother up against a wall for saying the same thing he just did. But in the years since Dad died, Sam's spent time thinking about the relationship he didn't have with their father and assigned himself all sorts of blame for the way things were – some of it very much deserved – while Dean's gotten to work putting into stark perspective exactly what he _did_ have.

"Dad was a great hunter, Sam, but…" _But he wasn't a great father._ Dean swallows, can't throw that dart at his brother's wide-open target of a heart. "But he wasn't perfect. He was scared, and he made mistakes." _A lot of 'em._ They were just kids, as innocent and unmarred as John appeared in the vision.

"I know that, Dean." Sam squirms in his seat, leans in. "I was always the one who called him on his bullshit."

Dean winces, but Sammy's not wrong. Not by a long shot. "I'm just saying…I don't know, man." He sighs, rubs at the back of his neck. "I don't want this to turn into a thing."

"You mean…what?" Sam's eyebrows work in childlike confusion. "You don't want to think about Dad in a positive light? I mean, you're seeing him – you saw him as a _kid_ , Dean."

He bobs his head. "I know."

"And whatever Dad…anything that might've happened later – you can't put it on that kid."

The shotgun passed into his hand when he was six years old. The weight of the guilt left in his father's wake as he traded his own life for Dean's, forcing him to face the stark truth that he might as well have killed the man. The horror of the order to kill his brother too if the time came.

"How old was he, do you think?"

Dean picks at a frayed thread on the blanket covering his lap, keeps his eyes pointed at anything in the room that isn't his brother. "I dunno, Sammy. Five, maybe six."

"Did he seem happy?"

Dean sighs. "I dunno, Sammy." On a loop, like they're kids locked in a dank motel room and Dad was supposed to be home already and Sam won't quit it with the questions. "It was dark. Henry was just telling him goodnight." He wants to leave it at that, but Sam won't let up with the big, wet eyes, and it wears on Dean's very weary soul. "Yeah. I think he was."

"Good." Sam nods, seems relieved.

Dean can relate to the feeling. If nothing else, it's nice to know their father had that, even for a brief amount of time. It wouldn't be long before Henry would be caught in a time-jump, and killed, and Dad would grow up thinking the man walked out on him. It would shape the way he thought about fatherhood, possibly even becoming the reason he believed he was destined to become nothing but a deserter, too.

Satisfied – at least for the moment, Sam sits back in his chair, looking thoughtful, and Dean slumps against the pillows, just _done._ He feels like a dishrag wrung dry, limp and discarded on the side of the basin, and figures he must pretty much look like it, too.

The look in Sam's eyes is a curious mix of gratitude, exhaustion, and apology as he tells Dean, "get some rest."

********************************************************************************

He wakes in a slow, natural way that seems out of place given recent events. It feels like morning, though he has no idea what time he fell asleep, or how long ago it was that Sam sleepily offered to awkwardly assist him in hobbling to the john. Dean's going to have an interesting bruise on his thigh from allowing pride to take the wheel on that one. The motel room is dark, thick curtains drawn closed, but there's a hint of orange light peeking through the gap in the muted gray fabric, evidence that it's probably later in the day than he'd thought, and maybe his sense of time and already laughable sleep schedule have been even more jacked. It's freezing cold in the room, the thermostat turned way down to combat the worst of Dean's fever, and evidence that his brother was too beat himself to reset the room to a more comfortable temperature before crashing.

He works out the kinks in his stiff, sluggish limbs, cracking his back and knees and neck, rotating his troublesome left shoulder as he pulls himself carefully into a seated position, wary of the inevitable screaming headache or shriek of pain from his marked upper back. But curiously, while his entire body feels just as sore and achy as he would expect after being as sick and pathetically bedridden as he's been, none of the newer pains from the spell flare. His head pounds, sure, a sharp, familiar twang in his temples aggressively demanding caffeine, but it's nothing approaching those levels of agony he's endured since the visions began.

Dean takes stock of the dark, cold room. The space is tossed, looks more like a dorm than the motel room of two grown men. The small round table contains the accumulation of his brother's notes, loose, crumpled papers, and remains of their meal from the previous day, which is also lending the air a sharp, sour scent. In the other bed, Sam's still sleeping, deep and hard and childishly twisted up in his covers. His hair is mussed and his face is smashed into his pillow, drooling an open-mouthed puddle onto the cotton and looking too much like a kid.

Looking too much like Dad.

Dean tears his eyes from his little brother before the very sight of him widens that crack he's already going to have a hell of a time patching.

The vision – the memory – comes back, washing over him like a frigid wave, and the sting is as fresh as when he'd first caught that glimpse of his young father. His chest aches and he swipes at his face with a trembling hand as he heaves himself from his bed and stumbles toward the bathroom. His weak body doesn't appreciate the sudden elevation change; his head swims and his legs threaten to buckle as he crosses the room. He catches himself before he slams the door, lets it _click_ shut gently instead so as not to wake his brother. As though anything short of a tornado tearing through the motel would wake Sam right now.

Dean flicks on the light, wincing as his eyes adjust, and slumps against the counter, raises his eyes to meet his reflection. He still looks like crap – there's just no getting around that – but he looks like crap in a generic way he's grown accustomed to over the years. Pale but not ghostly, and the bruises he earned courtesy of Cas's fist are almost entirely faded away. All that remains is a stubborn splash of purple below his left eye, a yellowish smudge at his jawline that's mostly covered by beard growth. He looks like he's been sick, but not like he's dying. Not like he's spent the last several days plagued by energy-sapping visions of the past.

He rolls his shoulders, cautiously, waiting for the shooting pains to rocket up his neck, for the vice to squeeze his skull, but it doesn't come.

And Dean realizes he doesn't _feel_ like he's spent the past several days plagued by energy-sapping visions of the past.

He feels…different. Better.

_Fine._

He frowns and rotates in the small bathroom, smoothly tugging his t-shirt up and over his head. He takes a breath before he turns to check the mirror, not sure why he's so nervous to do so. His heart falls when he sees the swirling, scorched markings that still cover his back, and he lifts a hand to trace out a wordy scrawl and symbol stamped across his shoulder blade, wincing as he feels out the ridge. _Son of a bitch._

It's still there, the whole damn thing. And that should mean the spell is intact, connected to his blood and using his own life force to power itself, except he doesn't FEEL cursed. Dean can readily recall the content of every vision he'd so far, every memory of Henry's, but he'd hardly been able to stay standing on his own just a short while ago, had been damn near out of his mind suffering the effects of whatever mystical poison had attacked his grandfather's system during the original mission. And now he feels…well, gross, to be honest. Grimy, and sore, and _starving,_ but FINE. And he has no answer for that.

That rank smell in the main room might not have been the leftovers after all, because it seems to have followed Dean into the bathroom. He sets the water as hot as he can't stand it, stays beneath the vicious spray and scalds his skin, ridding himself of that grubby feeling but the heat won't reach the memories, not his, and not those of his grandfather that have been crammed into his mind.

His recollection of the past couple of days is warped and spotty, and it's probably for the best he doesn't remember much of the nightmares that no doubt plagued his weakened, vulnerable mind throughout the entire ordeal. He knows that he was _sick_ , and he idly wonders if the fever ravaging his body burned so high it counteracted the effects of the curse. Hit some sort of biological reset button. It doesn't make any sense, but there's not a lot in his life that does.

In any case, it's a nonsensical thought Dean's going to have to keep to himself for just a little while longer. When he emerges from the bathroom for some clean clothes, Sam hasn't moved, softly snoring in a way he's not prone to unless sleeping incredibly deeply.

In fresh, dry clothing, scrubbed free of the sweat and grime of days' worth of sickness and the excess beard scruff done away with, Dean feels almost _normal._ Or, as normal as he ever does. Granted, he's still feeling a bit light-headed and his throat is dry, his mouth is hot and gross-feeling, and his stomach growls a long, low demand for food for the first time in _days._ His brother needs some sleep – needs ALL the sleep – and he might be asking for a top-shelf Sam Winchester lecture by doing so, but surely, he can walk down the street for a cup of coffee. Maybe a donut.

His stomach grumbles again at the thought. Maybe five donuts.

It takes some work to find the room key in Sam's stack of notes compiled on the tabletop, and Dean's eyes linger on the Impala's keyring, lying on the bedside table dangerously close to his brother's head. He hasn't gone so long without slipping behind the wheel of his baby since they had to stash her when they were keeping a low profile off the radar of the Leviathan. He decides against it, because Sam's going to have his ass for breakfast as it is.

Dean stands on the sidewalk for a long moment, breathing in lungful after lungful and allowing the crisp, fresh air to clear away the rest of the cobwebs from being cooped up in the room for so long. Then his stomach issues another impatient growl, and he trots off the step into the parking lot, shoots a glance in either direction before heading for the convenience mart catty-corner from the next intersection.

He pauses at the edge of a vacant lot strewn with broken glass and bits of trash, frowns as fuzzy memories play like a stuttered filmstrip in his head, his own this time. Of stumbling down the street and crumpling here in the weeds and garbage. Of Sam, pale and freaking out, finding him, loading him into the car and rushing him back to the motel.

He's put Sammy through the wringer, given his brother enough scares to last whatever might remain of BOTH their lives. He's gotta get it together. Sam's been through trial after literal trial the past few years, and Dean's certainly not making his little brother's life any easier with these new reasons to worry. If he did luck out here, and this fever somehow cracked whatever spell he'd been whammied with, then it's time to get back to work. And if not…well, they'll – _he'll_ – deal with that when the times comes.

Dean shakes off the memories and continues down the sidewalk toward the store. The door chimes when he pushes it open, a short, automated _ding._ He locates the line of coffee brewers on the far wall and his body propels itself forward as though caught in a caffeine tractor beam, and he lifts a local newspaper from the rack out of habit.

It's midday, and most of the dispensers appear empty. All but two. Over one of the spouts is hooked a plastic rectangle of doom, a cracked sign declaring _We're brewing fresh coffee just for YOU!_

"Figures," he mutters.

"We've got decaf ready," says a dull-looking, utterly unhelpful employee. The guy points with unnecessary aggression at the other dispenser.

"Yeah," Dean drawls. "No."

The kid shrugs and goes back to stocking chips, and Dean sticks a hip against the counter, flips lazily through the paper as he waits for the percolator to finish its vitally important task.

It's not his fault, really, that he finds the article about the suspicious deaths.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines used in this chapter:
> 
> "I'm trying to sleep. Are you having a stroke?"
> 
> Dean's torn between raising hell – Oh, hell, NO, we are not gonna do this right now – and giving Sammy what he wants.
> 
> "Dad was a great hunter, Sam, but he wasn't perfect. He was scared, and he made mistakes."


	20. Chapter Nineteen

_He can't see for shit through the smoke that's wrapped itself around him, choking him. Can't orient himself, can't even throw a haphazard guess at where the hell he might be. Worst of all, he doesn't know where Sammy is. The previous events are a blur, the past few days a haze of fear and rage and pain and regret._

_He has to find Sam. Has to –_

_"Sam?" He tastes soot on the back of his throat, can't draw a full breath._

_He's being devoured by the Darkness._

_He spins slowly, wary of losing himself further in the dense fog. The hair on the back of his neck stands at attention, and when he turns back, there she is. Head cocked, studying him with a look of gratitude, and an odd, unsettling longing._

_Her mouth twists into a smile as she reaches for him, and –_

Dean startles awake, one flailing elbow knocking into something light that slides straight off the table and lands atop the carpet, an exaggerated _thud_ that seems to rival the pounding of his heart.

With a snort, Sam's head snaps up from his pillow. He squints, pulls a hand from beneath his folded pillow to shift the hair from his eyes. "Wha – Dean? You okay?"

Dean clears his throat, struggling to recover his composure as a cold sweat tickles his forehead and his heart triphammers in his chest. "Fine. Yeah. Just fell asleep waiting on your lazy ass." He drops his gaze to the paper cup he'd knocked to the floor, its lid popped off to the side and a pool of coffee slowly soaking into the gray carpet. "That one was yours."

"Thanks. I guess." Sam's voice is rough with sleep, sloppy and confused. He shoves himself upright, digs a knuckle into his eye. "Hey, you put pants on."

Dean rolls his eyes, slurps a stalling mouthful of mostly warm coffee from the cup that survived his girlish thrashing. "You really gotta stop being so impressed when I get dressed."

His brother yawns and rolls his neck, working out the kinks of a long stretch of sleep. "You went out?"

"Yes, Sam," Dean sighs. "I put on pants, and then I drove MY car to get the first decent cup of coffee I've had in days."

Sam pushes up farther in bed, mouth open and no doubt ready to tear his stubborn brother a new one, when he registers the keyring on the bedside table, Dean's smirk. "You walked."

"To the end of the street. All by myself."

Sam nods, drags fingers through his hair as his gaze drops to the growing coffee stain. He stares down at the spot, eyes narrowing. "So what was it?"

"What was what?"

His brother raises his eyes, still ringed with faint smudges of exhaustion, and pins Dean with a _don't screw with me_ look.

And, yeah, Dean figures he's not really in a position to be playing keep-away with the details, given the state of things and what he's put his brother through the past few…well, _years._ "It was, uh…it was the Darkness."

Sam frowns, leans forward. "What happened?"

"Nothing, man." Dean fidgets under his brother's scrutiny, rocks the bottom of his paper to-go cup against the tabletop. "Really. It was just…I dunno. It was different."

"It was a dream," Sam says carefully, deliberately.

Dean realizes he never specified whether he'd woken from a dream, or a vision, and Sammy's head has gotta be running Worst Case Scenario drills. "Yeah." He drops his hand from the cup, lays it flat against Sam's assembly of papers, and stares at the wall.

"You think it was – "

"It was a dream, Sam." He jerks his chin. "Like you said."

_It was just a dream._

********************************************************************

_It was just a dream,_ Sam tells himself, thinking back on red-tinged visions of Hell.

Dean starts to casually, distractedly flip through the notes Sam's been painstakingly assembling since checking them into the motel. He lifts a yellow legal pad, raises his eyebrows. "What'd you do? Spend the entire night on WebMD?" He's clearly looking to change the subject, to avoid the issue of whatever dream – or nightmare – shocked him awake.

Given the hell Dean's been through, Sam can play along. For now. "I was worried about you. Your fever was…dude, what the hell is going on?" Last he checked, Dean might have no longer been delirious with pain and at risk of boiling alive in his own skin, but he was still weak and pretty well bedridden. Certainly, nowhere near well enough for a brisk stroll down to the corner mart. Sam frowns, tossing back his covers and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Why are you up? How are you feeling?"

Dean drops the notepad back to the tabletop but doesn't look at Sam, instead finds that nonthreatening, nonjudgmental spot on the wall to make eye contact with. "I feel fine."

"What do you mean, you feel _fine?_ "

"I mean…" Dean releases a breath, rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. "I dunno, man. I'm not ready to run any marathons or anything. I wanna sleep for a week and I'm _starving_ , but really, I'm…fine."

Sam tenses, every fiber of his being itching to give his brother a proper once-over, but he keeps his distance across the room. "The, uh, the tattoo, or the spell or…it's still there?"

Dean's shoulders shift, and he raises a hand to hover over the back of his neck before clenching it into a fist and dropping it. "Yeah," he says with a slow nod.

That's not good enough for Sam, not by a long shot. "Are you guessing? Or did you check?"

"Shit, Sam. Yes, I checked. It's still there. I just…" He shrugs. "I don't know. I can't really _feel_ it anymore."

"Could you feel it before? I mean, before the first vision?"

Dean screws up his nose, takes a drink of his coffee. "I don't know."

"So what are you thinking? You think this thing with your hand – " Sam's eyes tick sideways to the other bed – "the fever…you think it messed with the spell? Altered it somehow?"

"Yeah, maybe."

_Yeah, maybe_ doesn't exactly have a ring of confidence to it, and he knows that sort of dumb luck doesn't really fit their track record. Even if the mystical fever _did_ somehow alter the spell that's screwing with Dean's head, the sigils are still there, and that means they can be reactivated. "We should get back to Cas, have him take another look at…that." Sam gestures to his brother's back.

"Yeah." Dean swallows, tapping his fingertips against the table and looking like a guilty little boy. "Hey, listen. When I was grabbing the coffee, I saw this thing in the local paper – "

"No, Dean." Simply and firmly, even though Sam knows full well that Dean feels a reflexive need to fight when he takes this tone.

"You don't even know what I was gonna say."

Sam wants to launch across the room and shake his brother until his teeth chatter. He stands stiffly, glares down at Dean. "I've got a pretty good idea that you've gotten it into your head that there's some sort of case in this town." Suddenly, Sam blanks on where the hell they even _are._ Pennsylvania, he remembers.

Dean sniffs – his tell – then twists his arm around and digs into the pocket of the jacket draped over the back of his chair, tosses a folded newspaper onto the table. "Some poor son of a bitch bit it in a – in some freak farm equipment accident outside of town."

"You've gotta be kidding me, Dean." Sam shakes his head, jaw clenched painfully. "You are no condition for a damn hunt right now."

"I'm fine – "

"Like _hell_ you are, Dean."

Dean stares up at him. "I get it, Sam. I do. But…look, I can't explain it. The last twenty-four hours are a little…hazy, and I'm not saying I'm one hundred percent – I'm not. But I can do this."

_I NEED to do this_ , Sam hears, regardless of what his brother is saying. But it doesn't matter. It CAN'T matter. He bites his lip and stubbornly refuses to meet Dean's eyes. The past twenty-four hours are nothing to make light of, and nothing to be thrown away in the middle of a conversation like they don't mean what they _mean_. There'd been a few times there, when Dean was writhing in agony with a sky-high fever, that Sam was terrified he was going to lose his brother. Knows he very well could have.

Dean takes his prolonged silence as permission to continue, despite Sam fuming in his face and the fact they're both currently conscious only because his nightmare shocked him awake. He thumbs open the lid of Sam's laptop, spins it to display the screen. "Did a little research while you were sleeping. This is the third _accidental_ death on the property in the past six years. Three different owners. First guy to bite it got chewed up by a wood chipper just two months before he was set to retire and migrate south with the missus. Poor bastard probably got spit out all over that damn barn." He raises his eyebrows. "My guess? Remains on the property, probably buried in the family plot out back, too. It's just an EMF sweep and a salt and burn, Sammy. Friggin' cakewalk."

Sam calmly pushes the paper to the edge of the table. He hasn't had nearly enough sleep to deal with this, glances longingly at the puddle of coffee on the carpet. "This is a joke, right? You're screwing with me."

Dean frowns, looking genuinely, frustratingly confused. "What? No." He jabs at the article with his index finger, leans in closer. "Sam, this has all the signs of a haunting." He ticks off items on his fingers. "Accidental but violent death that likely left behind some remains, unfinished business, documented energy fluctuations and cold spots. Two more deaths in the same spot since. What more do you want?"

"No, Dean." Sam shakes his head. He narrows his eyes, and there's ice in his tone. His brother shrinks back. Sam's been riding this emotional roller coaster far too long, been hanging on by a fucking thread, and he's bound to snap. "No. There is absolutely no way we are investigating _anything_ right now unless it's a way to get those marks off you."

Dean wriggles in his seat, trying to act like he isn't uncomfortable from just the mention of the markings that mar his back, and failing horribly. He channels it into a clenched fist, pounds it lightly against the tabletop. "I'm telling you, Sam, I'm okay. Really. And we can't just ignore the job."

Sam raises his eyebrows, speaks as though his brother is a small child having difficulty understanding him. So, exactly how Dean is acting. "We aren't the only hunters out here, Dean. We can put someone else on this, easy."

"Can we?" Dean asks coolly. "You don't think it's gotten around, what happened to Rudy?"

_Ah, shit._ This is just one of many 'other shoes' Sam's been waiting to drop. He cocks his head. "Dean, man, that – that wasn't you."

"I don't think everyone is gonna be so quick to make that distinction, Sam." Dean shoves up from the table, crosses the room to stand at the window. He puts a palm against the glass and stares out at the parking lot. "Hell, we'll be lucky if anyone out there ever trusts us again."

"Dean…"

"I just wanna get back to normal."

He says it so softly, Sam can't even be sure it's not just his imagination. Dean's not just talking about hunting. He's talking about himself. His life. "Me, too." Sam runs a hand down his face, lifts the folded newspaper and scans the article that's got his brother twitching, then ducks to do the same with the additional information on the computer screen. Everything that jumped out to Dean jumps out to him all the same. "This looks like the real deal," he comments, moderately surprised. He really did think there was a possibility his brother was seeing a hunt because that's what he wanted to see. He should've given Dean more credit than that, even on a bad day.

Dean doesn't give him shit for it, takes it like a champ. He rolls his eyes and puts his shoulder blades against the wall, doesn't wince. "If this is gonna get done, it's gotta be us."

Sam drops his gaze, unable to face the self-blame and regret he sees shining darkly in his brother's eyes. When Dean hadn't wanted to be healed after attack-dog Cas beat the holy hell out of him, his eyes had betrayed the guilt he's been carrying over what he'd done, to both of them. Sam knows now that his brother carries so much more weight on his shoulders than just what he'd done to the two of them.

"What?"

He's gotten lost in thought, which is just the worst fucking thing to do with Dean. His brother seems offended, and stressed, and what he needs to get through this is for Sam to have his back.

And Sam knows that. "Nothing," he says with a sigh. "I just hate it when you're right."

Dean's leg jiggles where he stands, flush with restless energy. "If this is our kind of thing, we have a responsibility to take care of it."

Sam huffs, rubs at his eyebrow. "You sound like Dad." He doesn't really mean it, but he's had _John Winchester_ on the brain. When he raises his eyes to his brother, Dean doesn't seem to know how to take it, both complimented and stung.

Finally, he lifts a shoulder. "Well, he wasn't always wrong."

********************************************************************

Sam might agree to the hunt, but little brother puts his foot down when it comes to ironing out the details leading into it. They're only going to do this thing if Dean agrees to sit the hell down and _rest_ , and he's not permitted to do a damn thing more strenuous than lifting the TV remote, until it's late enough to head out with minimal risk of being seen. He acts annoyed and insulted by the implications, but truthfully, Dean's perfectly down with lazing away the afternoon. Because _fine_ might be a slight exaggeration; he wasn't lying when he told Sam he could sleep for a week. His limbs feel heavy and sluggish, and while it doesn't feel like his skull's about to split open, he does dig a few ibuprofen out of his brother's bag while Sam's in the shower. Their conversation has picked at wounds that haven't even really had a chance to scab over, and his mind's already been fucked three ways from Sunday with everything that's been crammed uninvited into his noggin lately.

He stretches out on his unmade bed and drifts off after putting away half a supreme pizza, and jerks awake to Sam slapping his boot at nine-thirty.

"Wasn't sure you'd actually wake me," he mutters, scrubbing a hand up through his hair.

"Yeah." Sam chews his lip. "Me either."

The barn is at the edge of a farming property on the outskirts of town, about thirty-five minutes from the motel. The old man whose demise prompted the article lived alone; the lights in the farmhouse across the field are dark. There are no neighbors for half a mile in either direction, and no threat of cops, as the death was ruled an accident. Under a spill of moonlight, the ramshackle structure stands large and ominous-looking, reminding Dean of the site of his showdown with Cain and making him twitchy, and he can tell from across the hood of the Impala that his brother doesn't have a good feeling about this. Has possibly the exact same bad feeling.

He gets that he's not being very subtle – or at _all_ subtle – in his determination to complete this job. There's a very good chance there isn't even anything worth their time going on here, and if there is, he's acting like torching this one lame, backwoods ghost is going to mean anything. Like it'll mean he can slide right back into hunting, because that's his twisted version of normal. Because that's who he is.

Sitting around waiting to die isn't who he is. He won't be that guy.

This is the guy can be. The hunter who tucks all his useless emo bullshit back into that dark corner of his mind where it belongs and gets the job done. _That's_ why they're here, and he knows Sam knows that. Little brother just isn't very happy about it.

The old family plot is just beyond the barn, like a creepy-ass gift with purchase that came with the house. Confirm EMF, salt and burn, in and out within an hour. Sam will do most of the digging, and might not even bitch about it. They don't need strategy, or even words exchanged. They've done this so many times, Dean's pretty sure it doesn't even matter that he's still sore and achy and embarrassingly weak.

Or maybe it does matter. But it shouldn't.

He can do this. He _has_ to do this. He can't have Sammy giving him the deathbed eyes for the rest of his goddamned life, however long that may be. He's gotta pull it together and get the job done. Tonight, and tomorrow, and each and every damn day after that.

They stand silently at the car for a moment. Sam squints up at the barn like he's thinking thoughts deeper than the crumbling structure warrants, but who is Dean to talk, really. He takes the keys from his brother and works the salt guns free from the trunk, shoves the items they'll need into a duffel.

"You're sure about this?"

He startles at Sam's voice, channels the adrenaline down through the fingers gripping the trunk lid. He swallows before responding, and his traitorous voice still cracks. "What's to be sure about, Sam? It's a milk run. We've been torching barnyard spooks since we were kids."

It's mostly true. First time out, he was nine years old and they were left in the car for the two hours it took Dean to decide _to hell with it_ and burn the entire mother to the ground. Second time, he was fourteen, supposed to stay behind with Sam but he didn't, yanked a gun from the trunk and hauled ass into the barn after his father. And that's about as much as he remembers of that night. Last time, not long after Dad died, Sam dragged him out of the barn by the collar of his jacket. They were both hacking on smoke and dirt and little brother was screaming at him, telling him that he was acting just like Dad, and if he was that desperate to get himself killed he could save them both some time and drama and stick his gun in his mouth right here and now.

Dean slams down the lid and slings the duffel over his shoulder. He must've packed heavy, because the weight of the bag sends him stumbling drunkenly the length of his first three steps away from the car.

Sam rolls his eyes, reaches out to drag the bag from Dean's arm and repositions the strap over his own shoulder. "You stay back," he commands firmly, like he's in any position to be giving orders.

Sometimes, Dean forgets that he finally gave his little brother permission to grow up. Now, he rolls his eyes to cover the swell of his heart at the thought, stomps up the gravel drive.

He can't fault Sam for his worry, or his caution. It's been a rough few days, and he gets that, even if he doesn't remember all that clearly. He rubs at the back of his neck, feeling out the faintly raised ridges of the swirling ink on his upper back, and a chill drops down his spine. He's struggling to put on a good show here, for his brother, to act as normally as possible, but this whole thing seems too good to be true.

And he doesn't deserve to get out of this one so easily.

A painful flare spikes in Dean's temple and he winces, scrubs at the spot with a quick hike of his shoulder.

Of course, Sam the Ever Omniscient sees, and somehow finds the time to assign all sorts of unnecessary and imaginary meaning to the motion. "Dean?"

"M'fine, Sam." He raises his eyebrows, jerks his chin. The pain in his head lingers but seems manageable. "You wanted to lead. Lead."

Sam narrows his eyes, stares just long enough to have Dean shifting his weight under the inspection. "I don't know, man. Maybe we should just roll the dice, call someone in to take care of this. Call Jody."

Dean gives another jerk of his head. "We're literally right here, Sam."

Sam studies him another long moment, then nods reluctantly and tucks the pump-action under his arm, turns to the shiny new padlock on the barn doors. Dean shines his flashlight beam on the spot while his brother makes quick work of the lock, then Sam shoulders his way into the rickety barn. The wide door opens with a long _creak_ , and the rising moonlight cuts a swath on the dusty, straw-strewn concrete.

Sam throws a hand behind him, pinning Dean in place, and clicks on his own flashlight to inspect the interior. "Looks clear." He tucks the flashlight away and digs the EMF detector out of his coat pocket as he jerks his head, motioning for Dean to follow.

He steps into the barn, and his vision tilts sideways. He frowns, squints, and pushes forward. When Dean's other boot comes down on the concrete, a pain in his temple flashes bright and hot, like an icepick skewering his brain. He staggers as he sees red, as the pain wraps around his head and nestles at the base of his skull. He blinks roughly, and the dark room snaps back into focus as the pain recedes.

_Okayyyy –_

Dean pushes forward through the quicksand surrounding his suddenly wooden, worthless legs, and his vision fuzzes a bit, gray creeping in from the edges.

Sam is on a mission to get this done and get the hell out, the kind of single-minded focus he'd never been able to rustle up for Dad when the man wanted to see it. He doesn't seem to hear the pathetic squawk of warning that escapes Dean's lips, or the rasp of his stubborn boot heel against the concrete when his next step just doesn't quite get there.

His brother doesn't see, doesn't hear, doesn't notice.

_Oh, God._

He knew he wasn't getting out of this one so easily.

This time, it isn't seamless.

First the lights go, a curtain of black dropping swiftly over Dean's field of vision. An oblivious Sam keeps moving into the darkened barn as his brother crumples soundlessly behind him. Dean can't see Sam, but he can hear his scuffing footsteps, the faint metallic _chink_ as he shifts the shotgun and flashlight.

Vicious, hot pain rips through Dean's head, a blinding light that fades as the visions start up again. Old information, and new details.

_The door opens carefully, and he shifts against the blankets, shoves into a seated position though it pains him to do so. "Where have you been?"_

_Sinclair freezes, caught halfway inside the open door. His eyes widen in surprise, a fraction of a slip that gives him away before he plasters on that frighteningly wide smile. "Henry. You're looking better."_

_He's been up to something. And it's painfully obvious exactly what that is. "What did you do with the book?" He might be looking better, but his voice is a harsh, painful rasp of sickness, and his punctured hand throbs mercilessly. Swallowing a groan, he makes a fist and presses it out of sight in a fold of soft cotton._

_"Not to worry, old friend." Cuthbert's eyes remain wide, nearly manic. "It's in a safe place."_

_"We have an obligation to the others." He leverages out of bed, wavers dangerously._

_"Get back into bed, Henry." Sinclair cocks his head and_ tsks, _stepping forward with his arms outstretched like he means to bodily shove Henry back to the mattress._

_He knows better, knows if he goes down now he might never get the chance to find out what the man did with the book._

_But he's also weak, and horribly unsteady on his feet, and his old friend easily overpowers him into a prone position._

_Cuthbert's hand lands warm and heavy on his shoulder. "Sleep, Henry. We've got to get you feeling better._

The warmth floods Dean's senses, a swift, merciless tug backward into oblivion.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt Lines Used in this Chapter:
> 
> "What'd you do? Spend all night on WebMD?"
> 
> Sammy bites his lip and stubbornly refuses to meet Dean's eyes.
> 
> "You sound like Dad."
> 
> It wasn't seamless. First the lights went.


	21. Chapter 21

At the car, Dean pales noticeably, his face stark-white against the too-black setting of a backroads kind of night. He hitches his shoulder and scrubs at the side of his head, and even though he doesn't seem to realize Sam is watching him, the motion isn't nearly as discrete as he probably thinks it is.

"Dean?"

"M'fine, Sam." Dean squares his shoulders and rolls his eyes, jerks his chin in the direction of the barn. "You wanted to lead. Lead."

Sam stands firm, appraising his brother in a wash of unforgiving moonlight and a breeze that smells of impending rain. Dean seems steady enough, but he learned a long time ago to look beyond how his brother _seems._ Dean is a master of deception; you never really know what's going on with him unless he wants you to. Unless he allows you to.

There are faint, shadowy smudges under Dean's squinted eyes that a less experienced assessor might miss, and despite his aggressively straight posture, Sam likewise recognizes the subtle sag of his brother's shoulders, like they're holding the weight of the world. Dean winces under his brother's scrutiny and shifts his weight like a wordless admission of vulnerability, or just general unwellness, and suddenly Sam doesn't want anything to do with the maybe-haunted barn looming behind them.

He sighs. "I don't know, man. Maybe we should just roll the dice, call someone in to take care of this. Call Jody."

Dean shakes his head, clearly annoyed by the suggestion. "We're literally right here, Sam."

_And you literally just almost died._ But Sam knows what this hunt means to his brother. His uneasiness doesn't fade, even as he reluctantly nods. He wordlessly takes one of the shotguns from Dean and starts up the gravel drive, channeling that unease into more comfortable frustration. A new padlock gleams in the moonlight, an effort to dissuade unwanted visitors. He tucks the gun under his arm and finds his lockpick in his pocket, removes the cheap lock with ease. He takes his time straightening, tossing a glance back at his brother and pinning him in place as he sticks his shoulder into the heavy, creaky door.

Keeping the door propped open with his foot, Sam digs out his flashlight and checks the inside of the barn with a wide sweep of the beam. The place has been thoroughly ransacked by the authorities; tools, brooms, and rakes still hang from the walls, but the structure has thankfully been cleaned of all larger, potentially-murderous pieces of farm equipment. A rickety-looking ladder to one side leads to a hayloft. "Looks clear." He swaps the flashlight for the EMF detector and grudgingly motions for his brother to follow him inside.

_A milk run_ , Dean had said. _In and out before you know it._ Before the ghost even knows it. And there is definitely a ghost in this barn. Sam doesn't need EMF to tell him that, but the lights on the device in his hand are going haywire as he further inspects the barn's interior.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his brother stumble, one hand sliding along the grimy wood-plank wall. The heel of Dean's other hand is pressed to his forehead, his eyes squeezed shut in obvious pain.

"Dean?" Sam calls, but his brother doesn't respond, doesn't put his mind at ease with so much as a grunt of pained acknowledgement, doesn't even seem to register that Sam has spoken.

_Goddammit._ Sam curses each of them in this damn barn. His stubborn, won't-take-no-for-an-answer brother, the spook he can feel stalking them – a faint chill at the back of his neck, a bulbous smear of fog skirting the edge of his vision. And definitely himself, because he could have put his foot down with Dean.

Behind him, Dean sucks in a sharp breath, and Sam whirls to watch his brother slide down the wall to land in a senseless heap atop the dirty concrete, white as a sheet and blowing like a freight train.

"Hang on, man," he calls. Pleads. He pumps the shotgun, trains the barrel on the spot where he last glimpsed the spirit.

Dust swirls up from the straw-covered ground and a harsh, bitter wind howls outside the barn. Sam's got a truckload of _I told you so's_ that have his brother's name all over them, but first he needs to get them both out of this barn, preferably in one piece. "Come on, you son of a bitch," he hisses at the spirit. "I do not have time for this."

There's a groan behind him, and Sam knows better than to take his eyes off a mark, but he can't help it. When he turns, Dean's legs are spasming in the dirt and straw, both hands clutching at his head as he tries to curl in on himself. His shotgun lies forgotten and useless next to his twitching right boot.

_No, no, no,_ Sam thinks. _Not this again._ But it's not _again_ , it's _still._ He knew better than this, knew better than to think they'd skate out of this thing so easily.

The ominous yowl of a threatened, riled-up spirit with some seriously bad timing draws Sam's attention back to the other side of the barn, and he brings up the shotgun, squinting into the darkness. But there are two threats to the ghost here, and one of them no longer has a deadly weapon in his hand. Sam realizes his mistake a second too late to get between the spirit and his downed, vulnerable brother.

Dean's eyes suddenly blow open and his gasps for breath, hands moving from his head to his neck, which is blooming an alarming shade of red. As is his face.

"Dean!" Sam can't see the spook that's attacking his brother, and that nearly causes him to pull his shot. It might trigger some long-buried feelings of resentment, but Sam would rather Dean take a little friendly fire of rock salt than be strangled to death by poor dead farmer Fred.

He fires off his last round into the space next to his gasping brother, and there's a spark of light, an agonized wail. Dean arches off the floor and crumples backward as he's released from the ghostly chokehold, coughing violently between noisy, desperate pulls for air.

"Dean, the gun," Sam orders, knowing exactly how cold and businesslike he sounds – how much like Dad he sounds – and hating himself for it.

Dean nods, still gasping as his wide eyes search the floor beyond his splayed legs until he locates the shotgun. He coughs hoarsely as he reaches for the weapon, and just as his fingers are closing around the barrel, he stiffens, is lifted from the ground and flung back into the wall by something Sam can't see. He strikes the wood hard, rattling a pegboard of tools with a _thwack_ that hurts Sam's heart, and slumps at the base of the wall. This time he doesn't move a muscle, eyes closed and limbs twisted.

Sam's breath hitches. "Dean!"

Nothing.

_Dammit._

Hindsight always has been one of the most-often used weapons in their considerable cache, and Sam knows that everything that's happened in this godforsaken barn is entirely his fault. Dean's brash and argumentative and stubborn as shit, but he's also just come out the other side of one of the worst fevers he's ever had. Maybe that's anyone's ever had. He's just spent the better part of _two days_ stuck in _bed._ It wouldn't have been easy, but it wouldn't have taken much for Sam to overpower him and wrestle him back into the damn thing. He could have cuffed him to the frame, the radiator. Knocked his weak ass out and loaded him into the car, shagged ass for the bunker. Could have done anything but give into this "milk run" that is rapidly becoming anything but.

Sam moves quickly to snatch up his brother's gun, and traitorously turns his back on Dean, eyes alert for any sign of the spook. He clenches his jaw. "Come on." He doesn't have time for this. _Dean_ doesn't have time for this.

The only warning he gets is a brush of cold air at the back of his neck, the eerie feeling there's someone standing behind him. He whirls, fires off Dean's gun and blasts the spirit square in the chest, hopefully buying the time needed to get his brother back to the relative safety of the car. Even so, Sam gives it a minute, finger tense on the trigger as he counts off the seconds on the suddenly overly-loud _tick tick_ of his watch. He finally drops to his brother's side, sets the gun aside but keeps it close as he gingerly jostles Dean's shoulder. "Hey, Dean."

He brother is out cold, which might be a blessing in disguise given the pain Sam knows has accompanied these cursed visions he's been having. Dean's head lolls on his shoulders in a way that squeezes Sam's heart, but is likely owing to nothing more sinister than the knock he took to the head when he collided with the wall.

Sam pats his brother's cool cheek. "Hey. Dean."

Still no response. Blood runs thick but sluggishly from a deep, jagged gash over his ear, and Sam hisses in sympathy.

Dean jerks, sucking in a breath and coughing harshly, and reflexively rolls to the side. Sam hops out of the way to allow the motion, doing his best to keep his brother's bloody head off the filthy ground.

"There you are. Take it easy." Dean is one heavy son of a bitch, and Sam shifts his weight to keep the man from collapsing completely back to the grimy concrete.

Dean doesn't speak, doesn't move, just lies across Sam's arm like it's too damn much effort to do anything else. They've really gotta get out of this barn, because the ghost has already made it quite clear that he's not going to play nice. Sam moves to haul his brother upright, but Dean's fingers twist in the sleeve of his jacket.

He swallows, throat working, and his eyelids flutter. "Can't leave the job unfinished, Sammy."

"You are the job right now, Dean." _You're the only thing that matters, man, so stop trying to make this so damn hard._ Sam ignores his brother's noises of protest and the weak attempt to shove him away, drags one arm over his shoulders and pulls Dean bodily to his feet.

"I got it," Dean argues hoarsely. He stumbles away a few steps and hip-checks himself against the unforgiving edge of a workbench. An assortment of rusted tools rattles from the impact, and a wrench clatters to the concrete.

"Yeah, you got it." Sam grabs him firmly by the elbow and steers him toward the open door.

He gets his brother down the drive, pausing only once and only long enough for a green-faced Dean to decide he isn't going to puke. Sam's as gentle as possible while still putting urgency behind the motion when he shoves his brother down onto the seat. Dean makes one more guttural, wounded noise of protest and tries vainly to shove right back out of the car, and Sam keeps him easily pinned to the bench seat.

"Sit," he barks, eyes trained on the bloody side of his brother's head and face. "Stay." He roots around in the backseat, comes up with a clean square of gauze from the kit and sticks it in Dean's hand, guides it up to the wound. "Here. Hold that a sec. You'll be pissed if you get blood all over the car."

Dean's face goes chalk-white and he closes his eyes, breathes deeply. "Since when do you care about the car?" he asks, voice thick and slow and with the rough scratch of sandpaper.

"I don't," Sam returns, though it's not true in the slightest. He tucks his brother's legs inside the car and carefully closes the door, mindful of Dean's likely headache.

He hurries around the front of the car, shooting a single nervous glance in the direction of the haunted structure as he drops behind the wheel. He toys with the idea of just burning the place down and calling it a day, because the damn ghost can't haunt the barn if there isn't a barn, but decides against leaving Dean alone in the car for even five minutes.

Sam turns the key in the ignition, eyes sliding sideways. "You okay, man?"

Dean swallows, nods. The gauze gleams wet and dark between his fingers.

The clouds are hanging full and low in the night sky when they make it back to the motel, and Dean lays his head back against the seat, makes no move to get out of the car.

Sam's stomach drops out of his body. Turns out he preferred the version of his brother who argued until he was blue in the face and was adamant he could take on a hunt. "Dean?" he prompts softly, keys in his palm and one leg already out on the pavement.

"Hmm?" Like he'd forgotten that getting out of the car was something he was going to have to do.

"We're here."

"Mm. Where?"

_Dammit, Dean._ Sam leans across the bench and pulls the saturated gauze away from his brother's head, hisses. "Dude, we need to get you a helmet or something."

Dean raises his eyebrows, licks his lips. His eyes close again as he begins to sag, slipping against the seatback.

Sam grips the back of his brother's neck, rattles him gently until his eyes open. "Hey, man. Follow my finger." Dean's pupils are sluggish but reactive, and while the wound on the side of his head is still bleeding, it's mostly superficial. There are more pressing concerns.

"Back there…was that another vision?"

Dean nods, then winces. "I was so stupid," he rasps, rolling his head against the seat. "Thinking this was over."

This is bad, on so many levels. On all the levels. Wishful thinking isn't anything to place a bet on, and it _was_ stupid to think the curse wasn't still sticking to him, for even a moment. Whatever caused this, wherever it came from, the spell is still wreaking havoc with Dean's mind, and his body, tearing at him and sapping his strength bit by bit. And it will continue to do so until they figure this out, or until Dean has nothing left to give. They're nowhere near out of the woods. Not yet.

"It's all right, man," Sam offers, trying to put some comfort and reassurance behind the words. "We'll figure this out." His gaze drifts to the windshield, and he forces a smile. "Just not in the car, okay?"

***

Dean's out, with five of Sam's neat stitches in the side of his head and a handful of regretfully mild painkillers down the hatch. His pale face is contorted in pain, even in sleep, but at least seems to be getting _some_ kind of rest.

Sam steps out of the room to make the call, because there'll be no stopping the torrent of guilt that will rush over his brother when he hears another hunter was put on a job because he couldn't hack it. Even a "milk run" salt and burn.

She picks up on the second ring, because they've conditioned her to expect bad news when a Winchester's phone number graces her caller ID.

_"Sam, hey."_

Breathless and tense, and it makes Sam realize the lateness of the hour. Jody's a different breed of hunter than they are, the kind that's been through the worst and had to learn hard and fast, like Bobby. Like Dad. She skips the pleasantries, manages to load the greeting with a dozen unspoken questions and worries. It's been too long since they checked in, and shit's starting to hit the fan out there, with the Darkness and all.

"Hey, Jody." Sam throws one more glance through the gap in the door before he pulls it completely closed, satisfied by the sound of soft snoring that Dean seems to be sleeping somewhat soundly. "You keeping tabs on any hunters out East? We sort of need help on a job." He should ask about Claire, about Alex, should do anything but launch straight into this selfish request for assistance, but it's not like there's much time for small talk in their lives.

_"You boys run into trouble like change in the street."_

It's not polite to ask and it couldn't matter less, but Jody can't be more than ten years older than Dean. She calls them boys because there was once a time they all needed it. She'd lost her young son – for the second time – and they'd lost every parental figure they'd ever had. After a while, the word has begun to sound wry and ironic in her voice. They're too old to be her sons, and haven't been boys in a damn long time.

Sam huffs a short, unamused laugh. "Don't I know it. Anyway, we sort of had to leave a job unfinished." He winces. If his opening didn't send up enough red flags, his follow-up surely has. They've never left a job unfinished. "You, uh, know of anyone in the general vicinity of Pennsylvania?"

Jody's tone immediately sobers. _"What's going on? You boys okay? Sam?"_

His back turned on his brother and a brick wall between them, Sam bobs his head, tries to put some conviction behind his words. "We'll be okay."

_"Sam."_

He swallows, feeling the intensity of Dean's imagined glare burning into the side of his head. "Dean took a, uh…he took a hit," he relents in a quiet voice, just in case his brother has woken. "But he'll be okay."

_"I'll get someone on it. Send me the details."_

Sam clears his throat. "Great, Jody. Thanks a lot."

_"And Sam?"_

"Yeah."

_"We'll talk later."_

"Yeah." Sam disconnects the call, knowing she knows that he's boiled this entire shitshow down to the lowest common denominator, and knowing he owes her better than that.

He rubs a hand over his face and takes a deep breath, sucking back a lungful of wet autumn air that does little to clear his head or give him a sharper idea of what to do here. He's always given Dean a fair amount of shit over babying and protecting him, for not allowing him the opportunity to grow up and into his own and take the damn leash off every now and then. But truly? He feels out of sorts when Dean's not taking the lead. Sam depends on his big brother to do just that, to call the shots and take the wheel. Maybe because every time Dean hasn't been the one in charge of a situation, he's been incapacitated in some way.

Sam's come to dread the times he's actually been able to take charge.

Desperate for a moment of clarity, he lays his head back against the door and closes his eyes, and nearly falls ass over tea kettle into the motel room when Dean pulls the door open behind him.

Sam's cheeks burn as he straightens. "I thought you were sleeping," he says lamely.

Dean looks like shit on a stick, pale and bruised and shivering noticeably in his thin t-shirt, hunched over with an arm wrapped around his middle. He cocks an eyebrow, maybe amused by Sam's near-tumble, maybe annoyed by what he's obviously overheard. "She gonna get someone on it?"

There's no use denying the reason he's standing outside with his cell phone. They're both smarter than that. "Yeah, she's gonna take care of it."

Dean's expression betrays nothing as he nods. "Good."

Sam snorts. There isn't a damn thing that's good about any of this. He narrows his eyes as his brother. "I thought you were sleeping."

"Is that why you're making secret phone calls outside the room?"

"It's not a secret phone call, Dean. I told you I was gonna have Jody put someone on the job."

"Then why the hell did you have to come out here to do it?" There's no heat behind Dean's words, no fight in his eyes.

Sam puts a hand on his brother's arm, tries to move him back into the room. "Come on, man, we've gotta get you – "

"Get _off_ me, Sam." Dean wrenches his arm away. "I'm fine."

He's not, obviously. He's hardly even standing upright, and something in Sam snaps like a rubber band. "Stop saying that," he seethes, leaning in and backing his brother up against the doorjamb. "Stop acting like this is nothing, Dean. Like it isn't serious. Like it's not the – "

His phone trills in his hand, saving them both the unpleasantness of whatever he was about to say. Sam lifts the cell, glancing at the screen. "It's Cas."

"He always did have a knack for crappy timing," Dean mutters, shifting with a wince against the open door. He frowns deeply, presses his fingertips to the bandage at the side of his head.

"Go sit down," Sam says with a sigh, knowing his brother won't listen. He brings the phone to his ear. "Hey, Cas."

_"Sam. Is everything okay? I was expecting you back at the bunker by now."_

"Yeah." He draws out the word, uses the extra time to decide just how much to tell the angel, with Dean stubbornly standing right next to him. "We took a, uh, a small detour." Sam winces, but Cas will know enough to know what he isn't saying. The two of them have a sort of standing agreement about how to handle Dean. His brother would kick both their asses if he knew they talked about him as much as they do. "Nothing to worry about."

Dean points to the crinkling bandage at his temple, curls his lip. "Speak for yourself, Ghost Whisperer." The joke falls flat; his face is sickly pale, like the vision that struck him in the barn tore a tangible chunk from him.

A chilly breeze strikes Sam's face, and rain finally begins to fall in fat drops that thud against the awning over their heads.

Dean shivers, and Sam rolls his eyes. He grips his brother by the shoulder, spins him and marches him into the room, shoves him too easily down onto the edge of the nearest bed.

_"Sam?"_

He hasn't even heard Cas talking, has no idea what he's said. "Yeah," he replies anyway, for Dean's benefit more than anything. "We're pretty much done here, chased this Berwick lead all the way to a dead end. Give us the night and we'll head your way first thing tomorrow."

_"Sam…is everything okay?"_

He nods, gives Dean a thumbs-up. "Sounds great, Cas. We'll see you." He hangs up quickly on a sputtering Castiel, crams the phone into his pocket.

Dean's still trembling, still probably concussed, and still has an arm wrapped tightly around himself, but he levels a frown up at his brother. "Why wait til morning? Let's hit the road."

Sam pushes his hands through his hair. God, he needs a shower. He sighs. "Dude, you look like crap and I just sewed your head back together. It can wait until morning."

"I'm good, Sam."

He bites his tongue, but what he really wants to do is shake every I'm good and I'm fine out of his brother. "How about this? Just…lay down, okay? Just long enough for me to take a quick shower. If you're not asleep by the time I get out, we'll head for the bunker." Sam raises his eyebrows. "Deal?"

Dean rolls his eyes, but flops back with a sigh of his own, throws his arm over his eyes. "Whatever."

For all his stubbornness and big talk, he's snoring before Sam even closes the bathroom door.

_To Be Continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines used in this chapter:
> 
> "You run into trouble like change in the street."
> 
> Dean points to the gash at his temple. "Speak for yourself, Ghost Whisperer. So what are you thinking?"


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

Dean dreams of darkness. Of fear and peace, and the messy, sticky world that resides between.

He dreams in memory, not all his own, and wakes with a lingering ache of fatigue thrumming in his skull. A sharp twang of abused muscle resonates down his neck and into his back, he can feel his pulse in the fresh bruising along the side of his head, and his stiches are itchy. He digs a cheek into his pillow and screws up his nose, resisting the urge to inspect the spot.

It feels like he _just_ closed his eyes, but there's an aggressive slice of sunlight between the drab curtains that wasn't there before. He rolls stiffly to his back and blinks up at the ceiling, willing away the gauzy remnants of his dreams, but he'll settle for losing the persistent pound in his head.

Dean only registers the sound of water running in the other room when the shower shuts off with a stubborn groan of motel plumbing. He's moving horribly slowly and is remarkably off his game, and the bathroom door opens before he can properly pull his lame ass out of bed.

There's still water running in rivulets down Sam's face, and his hastily-donned gray t-shirt is stuck to his chest. He stops short seeing Dean awake, pushes clumps of wet hair from his face. "Hey." The most loaded _hey_ in the history of _heys._

Dean leverages up on his elbows, biting back a groan. He pauses as the room tilts just a fraction, blinking hard, and frowns up his brother once the walls have righted themselves. "You just now got out of the shower?"

"Uh, yeah. Dude, it's been, like, eleven hours." Despite the smirk on his face, there's more concern in his expression than there is amusement.

"What?" Dean turns toward the bedside table, too fast, and blinks again to clear the spots from his vision. The blurry clockface confirms his brother's words, reads a too-bright 10:15. "Damn." He rolls his neck, to no avail. A dull, familiar thump continues to beat behind his eyes, a blossoming headache that runs in the same vein as every other battered, post-hunt headache he's ever had. He sits up completely and throws back covers he doesn't remember pulling up.

Sam surges forward, that aggressive concern falling over his face like a mask. "Yeah. Hey, don't get up, man. We're not in any rush. You can sleep more if you need to."

Dean blinks, one leg already untangled from the blankets. "If I need to?" He rubs at the back of his sore neck, fingers stilling when he notices his brother staring. He rolls his eyes and drops his hand with a sigh. "I'm good."

Sam crosses his arms and lowers his gaze to the floor. A bead of water slips from his hair and plops silently to the carpet. "Please stop saying that."

"I can't," Dean admits, in a low voice that might as well be a shout in the quiet room.

His brother bites his lip, bobs his head. "We're gonna figure this out, Dean. You and me, and Cas. We're gonna fix this."

That sounds great, but his brother can't even look at him as he says it.

"All right." Sam clears his throat, looks around the messy motel room.

Dean follows his roaming gaze. There's evidence of last night's stitching extravaganza lying atop the small table, and he reflexively raises a hand to the lump on the side of his head.

"How's the head?"

He immediately drops his hand to his lap, fights to widen his gaze around the burgeoning headache. "It's awesome."

"Sure." Sam sighs, gestures to the mess of discarded clothing peppering the floor. "I'm, uh, I'm gonna get us packed up."

Dean pushes the rest of the blankets aside, scoots forward to the edge of the mattress. "I can – "

"No!" Sam's head whips around with such force and speed it almost gives _Dean_ whiplash. "Don't move, man. I got it. Really."

Sam's so anal-retentive he has a conniption if Dean comes too close to his bag, but he's apparently taken it upon himself to pack them both up to head out. Dean glares, despite the increasing pulse in his head.

His brother lifts a shoulder, making a play at nonchalance, but the motion is stiff and laced with stress. "I'm just saying…I get it, if you need to rest. That was a hell of a hit."

"It was just some B-grade spook, Sam. Jesus." Dean rolls his eyes, shoves up to his feet. "I'm not made of glass. Quit treating me like I'm gonna – " The headache finally wins, and pain explodes in his head, sets of fireworks behind his eyes.

When the flare fades, he's in an entirely different, though familiar, room.

_He stands at the door as his young son mumbles in his sleep, watches him toss and turn in distress for the third night in a row. Millie had warned him against taking the boy to see 'Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy,' said it was too frightening for a four-year-old. She'd been right, of course but he can't really begrudge his son the innocent fears, the belief that the monsters in movies are the scariest things he'll encounter in the world._

_One day he'll teach John the truth about what lies in the dark, but for now…_

_He looks down at the music box in his hand, and a smile pulls at the corners of his mouth as he makes his way over to the bed. The mattress dips with a groan as he perches on the edge, and he places a hand on his son's small chest, coaxing the boy from his nightmares. "John," he whispers._

_John blinks himself awake, presses a tiny fist to his eyes._

_"Bad dream?"_

_The boy nods, eyes glistening with unshed tears._

_He shows his son the small music box in his other hand. "It's okay, sport. This will help you sleep." He twists the knob no the bottom of the box, until a simple tune starts playing 'As Time Goes By,' and he places the music box on the nightstand._

_A grin cuts John's face like a fault line._

Dean's never quite been smacked upside the head with it like this before, how much Sammy looks like Dad.

***

"Dean!" Sam reacts as soon as his brother's eyes roll up, but Dean still bounces hard off the edge of the mattress on his way down.

He taps his brother's ghostly white face urgently, insistently, not even pausing to weigh the options between forcing Dean back and waiting for the vision to play out. He just needs his brother to look at him, to _really_ look at him.

Dean jerks, and his glazed eyes skip right over Sam, like he's not even there, go about roaming the landscape of the room without really taking in any of it.

Sam swallows, fingers tightening around his brother's shoulders. His gives Dean a quick, desperate shake. "Hey, Dean. Look at me."

Dean sucks in a shuddering breath. He focuses, tenses as he searches Sam's face. "You look like Dad," he says in a low, hoarse whisper.

"Wh – " Sam gapes, fumbling for a coherent response. "Dean, did – did you just see Dad again?"

Dean recovers from the vision surprisingly quickly, given the state of things. His eyes widen as he realizes what he's just said, and he suddenly has a look on his face like he's about to remove himself from the situation, if not the room altogether, as he desperately struggles to dislodge his brother.

Sam won't give an inch. He's got thirty pounds on Dean on a good day, and there's no way he's letting his brother out of this one. But he's not thinking. He's tired and he's spent too much time over the past few months thinking about dead friends, and watching his brother hurt. Watching him suffer. Dean wouldn't crack last time he saw Dad, wouldn't share…but this one thing, this accidentally witnessed moment in time is exactly what Sam needs to keep him going. Especially right now, when he feels like he's hanging onto his sanity by his last frayed thread.

"You can't keep this from me, Dean. Not again. That's not fair." It's childish and thoughtless, and Sam's just stepped over a line. Whatever it's worth, he _knows_ that.

Unfortunately, it's not worth much, because Dean might be rundown and pinned beneath Sam's bulk, but he's also worn about as thin as he's ever been, and he's not in a mood to allow his mouthy little brother to walk this one back. He forcibly extricates himself from Sam's grasp and scoots away, presses his back against the bedframe. He clenches his jaw, and there's no word for the extent of fury in his eyes as his head slowly pivots to face Sam.

"It's not _fair_?" The glint in his brother's eyes is dangerous, and it's one Sam's seen only a handful of times. Usually right before Dean's fist crashes into his face. "When exactly did you get it into your head that fair had anything to do with any of this?"

_Way to kick the man when he's down, Sam. Friggin' genius._ His heart pounds anxiously as he scrambles to fix this. "Dean, man, I didn't – " His cell phone trills from the table across the room, and Sam's eyes dart that way. He shoots a glance back at his brother, then slowly stands to check the phone. "It's Cas."

Dean huffs, drags himself up onto the bed with a grimace. "Saved by the bell," he mutters, dropping his chin and wrapping a palm around the back of his neck.

Sam grabs up the phone, and anticipation lends an uncharacteristic shake to his voice. The angel wouldn't be calling again so soon if he didn't have news. "Cas, hey. You got something?"

_"The witch."_

"What?"

"What?" Dean frowns, stands unsteadily. "What's he saying?" The bruises from last night's ghost fiasco are really coming to bloom now, accentuated by the square of stark-white gauze crinkling at his temple and standing out grotesquely against the backdrop of his sickly pale face. He tucks his left elbow into his side, a small motion Sam might not have caught if he wasn't growing fine-tuned to recognizing such things. It makes him wonder, even briefly, how many of these tiny tells of his brother's he's missed over the years, because it's easier to believe Dean when he says he's okay.

Sam puts the phone on speaker, lays the cell on the table between them. "Come again?"

_"I've secured the witch who drugged Dean in the bar."_

Sam grips the back of a chair, leans in. "You…you what?"

_"She's here. In the bunker."_

He raises his eyes, meets his brother's matching, wide-eyed gaze. "Wh – Cas, why didn't you tell us you had a bead on her?"

_"You would have told me not to go after her."_

A beat, in which Sam cocks his head, conceding that point. "Well…yeah."

Dean reaches across the table and whacks his arm, and there's enough frustration behind the motion that it actually stings a bit. "What the hell's he doin'?" he hisses.

_"Trying to save your life."_

"Well, you know, don't," Dean replies darkly, crossing his arms as he pointedly looks away from Sam. "Worry about yourself, Cas."

_"Of course. In the meantime, what would you like me to do with the witch in the dungeon?"_

Sam lifts his chin. _Huh._ Turns outs weak, brutalized Castiel does a pretty spot-on impression of Cas 1.0.

Dean rolls his eyes. "We're on our way. Don't do anything until we get there." He throws up a hand – _unbelievable_ – and stomps across the room, goes to work packing up his belongings into the duffel at the foot of his bed.

Sam doesn't follow suit, just stands there in the middle of the room, chewing his lip and staring down at his now-dark, silent cell phone. "Dean."

"Hmm." His brother doesn't look up, rolling a pair of jeans and cramming them into his bag.

"Dean." _Look at me, man._ This is a potentially big thing, and it's sort of eclipsing what's just transpired in the room. Sam wanted off the hook for his thoughtless slip, but he didn't want it to be completely swept under the rug for the sake of another emergency. He needs more than _hmm_ from his brother. He needs eye contact, and some reassurance that Dean can _do this._ That his head's in game, or, as well as can be expected. "Look at me," he adds aloud, when the silent plea falls on stubborn, predictably deaf ears.

Dean sighs, tosses his bag atop the rumpled bedspread and turns to face his brother. "What?"

_Are you okay?_ Sam swallows the inquiry. He already knows the answer and hearing a lie in return won't do anything for either of them. "What are we gonna do with her when we get there?" he asks instead.

His brother rubs at his forehead, wincing as his fingers trip over the bandage. "We'll figure it out on the way, I guess."

"You know this could be a trap, right? I mean, this is probably a trap."

Dean shakes his head, huffs. "No shit, it's probably a trap, Sam."

"Okay." Sam nods, tossing his phone to the other bed. "Just so we're on the same page."

"We are."

Except they're really, really not.

***

The vision sticks to him like a cheap dryer sheet, once more tormenting his mind with all those things he's not supposed to be thinking about.

He wanted to be angry – he'd conditioned himself to be _angry._ The man traded his life – his _soul_ – so Dean could have another chance, but he was still forced to see his father in a brand-new light after that entire ordeal. He saw him for exactly who he was: an obsessed bastard driven by revenge and not much more. A man who spent decades building a weight upon the shoulders of his young sons, a weight Dean and Sam carried with them into adulthood. What his dad put on him – it wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, and Dean's clung to his much-belated anger for the better part of the past ten years.

Even in his final act, the one time that he actually showed Dean that he cared for him as more than a well-behaved soldier, his father left him with a terrible burden. A task that nearly sent him over the edge, taking Sam with him instead of saving him.

_Yeah, well, Dad's an ass. You don't lay that kind of crap on your kids._

_All that crap he dumped on me about protecting Sam, that was his crap._

_I didn't deserve what he put on me._

He'd conditioned himself to be angry.

But now, because of these goddamn visions…now he's remembering things about Dad that he's allowed himself to forget. The small things, the good things. Not the hunts and the orders and the weapons training at an obscenely young age, shooting at cans behind abandoned buildings when he should have been playing with Legos. Not the werewolf that nearly tore his arm from its socket when he was eleven, or the Rawhead that knocked him silly while Sammy wailed in the background.

He's remembering Dad's laugh – a full and hearty and throaty sound that rebounded off the cheap, thin plaster walls of whatever furnished dump they were renting while they waited out the end of school year. He's remembering the feel of calloused fingers thumbing a bruise on his cheek, and the care and unspoken love channeled through the motion. It's messing with his head, and his head's already been pretty well messed with.

Lulled into an uneasy sleep by the steady, calming purr of the Impala's engine, he dreams of the way things might have been, if they hadn't been hunters. If they hadn't lived on the run, growing up in seedy dives and at the mercy of whatever monster Dad had gotten wind of. He dreams of Dad teaching him to drive at sixteen instead of eleven, of maneuvering the wide body of the Impala through narrow city streets in Lawrence and pulling into the driveway of the home he'd once known. Of throwing her into 'park' and turning to his father with wide, hopeful eyes and seeing a warm smile in return, a large hand ruffling his hair. "Perfect landing, son."

Dean jerks awake to Sam drawing his hand away from his shoulder, eyes wide and guilty. "What?" His voice is rough, choked.

"Hey," Sam says slowly. "Sorry, didn't realize you were…it seemed like a good time for a pit stop. Figured you – we – could use some grub."

He clears his throat, sits straighter on the bench and surveys the small-town diner on the other side of the wide windshield. "No, yeah." Dean reaches for the door handle, desperate to escape the suddenly claustrophobic feel of the car. "Sounds good."

They find a booth in a relatively quiet corner, and while Sam chatters on about how hungry he is, just mindless noise to fill the space between them, Dean can't make sense of the small print of the plastic-y menu. He distractedly tells the waitress to bring him a bacon cheeseburger, anything to shut his brother up and get that kicked-puppy look off his face.

She takes the menus and leaves the table, and Sam stares at him carefully, obvious in the way he's trying so damn hard not be obvious. _Jesus._ It's a wonder they've passed as FBI for as long as they have.

Dean's feelings for Dad _then_ are mixing with his feelings for Dad _now_ , and he doesn't even know what the hell. Seeing the man as a young boy – as an _innocent_ – has been a completely jarring experience. He snapped before, but he _knows_ he owes Sam better than what he's been able to offer the kid. It's just hard to open that lid. He might not be able to close it up again once he does. Might not ever be able to make sense of this, to put it all in order.

"You look just like him," he says, without warning or preamble or even the courtesy of eye contact. It's easier this way, staring at the ringed water stains on the diner's tabletop, while dropping a bomb of this magnitude.

Sam nearly chokes on a mouthful of iced tea, gags spectacularly for a long moment and pounds a fist against his chest. When he's through with the dramatics, he rasps a wet, "what?"

Dean trails cold fingers along the bottom of his own water glass, swirling the condensation into random patterns on the tabletop. Or maybe not so random. "Dad. You look just like him." He rubs the sigils away with the flat of his palm, then drags the moisture away on the thigh of his jeans. "Or you did, when you were a kid."

Sam's eyes move rapidly, cutting a course from the drink to Dean's face to the window to his right. "You're, uh…you're talking about the vision?"

"Yeah. I guess I am."

Sam sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and bobs his head. "Okay." He looks almost pissed, likely because Dean skipped the privacy of the motel room and the car and decided to launch this conversation in the public domain. He can't really ask the questions he wants to, and they can't really have the conversation he wants, not with so many ears close by. And that's just tough.

"Okay," Dean parrots, a hollow sound that seems to loud in the hushed restaurant. His fingers tap against the surface of the table, seemingly of their own accord.

"Don't do this, Dean."

His gaze whips up to his brother, finds Sam looking dark and somber, eyes hooded and lips set in a tight line. "Don't do what?" he asks, only half as innocent as he's playing at. He knows what Sam's saying, because he knows what he's doing, or what he's about to do. What he's trying to do.

Dean's good at keeping secrets and bad at sharing feelings, at clueing his brother into those serious, hidden parts of himself that cement their relationship as brothers when they find themselves in the worst of times. When things are good, he hides the darkness inside behind jokes and smirks. In a moment of tense silence, when things are looking dire and they're up against a brick wall of pain and imminent death, those are the times he knows Sam has come to wish for Dean to stay silent and smirking.

Because when Dean makes like he's thinking about having a deep conversation, he's thinking about the end of something. He's not much of a mystery to his little brother anymore, and maybe that's part of the reason he squirrels such things away to far-off corners of his mind when he has the opportunity.

"Don't talk like this," Sam says softly. He's always trying to crack his brother like the spine of a new hardcover, but never in a moment like this. Never when Dean offers it up willingly.

"Don't talk like _what_ , Sam?" He isn't being fair to his brother, forcing him to say the words for the both of them. But like he told Sammy earlier, fair doesn't really have anything to do with any of this.

Sam flops back against the booth seat, jaw clenched, and shakes his head. He doesn't look directly at Dean as he speaks, instead pointing his gaze out at the parking lot, and the sun setting behind the tree line. His fingertips tap aggressively against the table. "This isn't going to be the end of anything, Dean, so don't talk like it. You haven't talked about Dad in years. I know what I said before, but I…I don't have to…I don't want you to feel like you owe me any of this."

But he does. They don't talk about a lot of things that they should, and Dad's been one of them, a sore topic for a long time, and a confusing one for even longer. Their feelings have never quite matched up, one of them always pissed and one of them missing him like he was Father of the Year.

John Winchester sure as hell wasn't in the running for any awards, but he made sure they were taken care of, most of the time, and loved them like crazy. Even if he did a shit job of showing it. It's been safer, as the years have yawned on with a Dad-shaped hole in them, to let his absence go by unacknowledged. Every years, his birthday is a solemn day, neither awkwardly ignored like Dean's or aggressively celebrated like Sam's but passing by silently and individually recognized by them both. Dean knows he's taken to hitting the bottle a little harder than he should over the past few years, but the heat of the whiskey does such a good job dulling all of the aches and pains that have been plaguing him, physically, mentally, and emotionally. He tends to spend Dad's birthday with a day-long buzz, trying to drown the memories of the man that bring sharp aches and tears, because it's a day all about Dad and it's harder to ignore the pain when Sammy won't leave his side, lest this be the year he finally cracks open like an egg and spills all his juicy secrets and feelings.

Sam knows there are holes in the story. Knows there's a lot he doesn't know, still. He was in California for four years – _long_ ones. Right after Dad died, he'd started in with all the questions Dad had been holding at bay with pain and chaos and demonic threats.

_What sorts of hunts did you guys go on?_

_Was Dad ever hurt bad?_

_Were you?_

They were just as long for Sam, even with the sunshine and girlfriend and good grades, and Dean won't ever allow himself to ask about all that had happened. He doesn't want to hear about all the good, not when he was wading through a quicksand made of blood and bullets for four whole years, struggling to keep his head above water. Sam wants to swap stories, but there's not much to compare, with frat parties on one hand and a partially collapsed lung in the other. All-nighters at the library versus three days in the desert on the trail of a Chupacabra when you only packed supplies for two.

Eventually Sammy gave up. Accepted there was a hole in the story that wouldn't ever be filled, and the only time he ever really pokes at it is on Dad's birthday, following Dean around hoping that his whiskey-swimming head will see fit to drop little nuggets of information like treats. They might not talk about him like they should, but he's always _there._

Dean sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. "Forget I said anything, okay?" This is entirely his fault, really. He hadn't been able to keep up the wall when he was first faced with his father as a child. He was weak and so damn tired, and he'd slipped, let Sam know there was something inside to keep chiseling away at.

Sam nods tightly, eyes narrowed and chewing on his cheek. "Okay."

"Okay," Dean says again, with more tone than is necessary and for no other reason than to irritate his brother, because Fiery Sam is infinitely better company than Brooding Sam.

Little brother huffs and rolls his eyes, returns his attention to the salad rapidly wilting on the plate in front of him.

Mission accomplished, Dean drops his gaze and reassesses what remains of his own dinner, another bland small-town burger and a pile of soggy, aggressively seasoned wedge fries. He picks at a few of the fries, drags one through a pile of ketchup and is in the motion of bringing it to his mouth when fire shoots through his head and his hand spasms violently.

He's losing steam, and the message is starting to get lost in translation; he can't see anything clearly enough to make sense of it. There are shadows in his field of vision and emotions layering over his own. His heart races and he can feel it, but can't tell if it's his own rapid pulse or Henry's. Muted voices shout at each other, a passionate argument over the whereabouts of something important, something dangerous.

Everything dims further, and a ringing picks up in his head, growing louder and louder until it drowns out any other sound.

Dean floats weightlessly for an unknown amount of time – not seeing anything, not hearing anything beyond the ringing, not feeling anything other than the frantic _thumpthump_ of his heart tripping wildly in his chest, like it's struggling to escape.

A young, achingly innocent laugh chimes out through his consciousness, and it sounds so much like Sammy used to that it has to be Dad.

Then he registers the sensation of giant, warm hands on his face, a desperate grip, and a voice vying for his attention, pleading with him to respond. He opens his mouth, croaks a pathetic sound.

"Thank God," Sam breathes shakily.

Dean blinks until his brother comes into focus. Sam's face is chalk-white, eyes blown huge and childlike in fright. Once he's locked on Sam, everything else begins to sharpen. He's got an odd, angled view of the diner, realizes he's on the floor, legs twisted beneath the table, tile sticky beneath his cheek. Water drips from the edge of the table and pools next to his splayed hand.

There's an odd silence beyond Sam, none of the usual diner noises. No clatter of silverware or clink of glasses or droning hum of conversation. And that can only mean one thing: that every fucking eye in the place is currently staring directly at him.

Dean tries to shove up, but Sam keeps him pinned down easily, monstrous hands shifting to his shoulders. "Geddoff me," he orders, trying to put some strength behind it but it comes out a hoarse, broken whisper.

"Dean, just take a minute," Sam returns, with a tremble in his own voice. He rubs his cheek along his shoulder. "Jesus. Don't scare me like that, man." He sits back on his heels but doesn't seem to have any inclination whatsoever to help Dean to his feet. Not just yet. "You went down, and I just…I thought…"

His eyes drop, and Dean follows his gaze, looks down at himself and bucks at the sight of a red smear across his chest, brings up a frantic hand to flap at the spot. But it's not blood on his shirt – cool to the touch and the texture is all wrong. _Ketchup_ , Dean thinks, remembers, dizzily. His head swims and his stomach flips, and he can feel each and every one of those goddamn eyes on him.

"Let me up," he says, voice stronger this time.

Sam never releases Dean's arm, not during the transition from the floor to standing, and not on the way out of the restaurant. Dean wants to be offended, wants to shake him off and throw a fit, except he's not actually sure he'd be able to make the trip on his own. His head is pounding mercilessly, feels hot and heavy and his _eyeballs_ are pulsing. He can hardly see, can't focus for _shit_ on things that are a foot in front of his face.

An elderly couple seated near the door dip their chins with twin sympathetic smiles as Sam herds him past, and the waitress who'd brought their lunch holds open the door for them, touches his elbow and offers a similar twist of her bright red lips as they pass.

"What'd you tell them?" Dean asks with a frown, sticking a shoulder into the door anyway.

"That you were an epileptic." Sam gives no indication of how he feels about the lie, but his fingers tighten where they're wrapped around Dean's upper arm.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines included in this chapter:
> 
> A grin cuts John's face like a fault line.
> 
> Dean's eyes skip right over him like he's not even there, go about roaming the landscape of the room.
> 
> "Hey, Dean. Look at me."
> 
> There was no word for the extent of fury in Dean's eyes as his head slowly pivoted.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Two

Calling it a rough night is wildly understating one of the most stressful twelve-hour stretches Sam's had to endure. He's set on driving through the night, wants desperately to get his brother back to the relative safety of the bunker and under the watchful eye of the angel on the payroll, but he's not sure he has it in him to ask that of Dean. Because his brother is not doing well, and that's another hell of an understatement.

He's doing his damnedest to put up a strong front, but Dean's sagging noticeably against the Impala's passenger door, and his face is sickly pale, nearly translucent under the unforgiving flare of passing streetlights. He hasn't recovered from the mental assault of the vision in the diner and isn't giving Sam any reason to believe he will. Every now and then his hand twitches against the bench seat, a spasm of pain visibly rocking his body. This isn't like when that damn phantom poison was running rampant through his system, but it's still…familiar. His body is breaking down on him, crumbling under the weight and effects of the visions, like when his heart was giving up on him and all Sam could do was watch.

He's just as helpless now as he was then. Just as lost. There's nothing he can do for his brother, not really. No way to alleviate Dean's pain, his suffering. The only thing Sam can do is trust Cas when he says he has answers waiting for them at the bunker. Even so, he knows they can't risk calling him back, not if they want to avoid tipping off any potential eavesdropping bad guys – or gals. Cas had been in a bad way when they'd left him, weak and struggling, and Sam can't ignore the possibility that things back home have played out in the complete opposite way as they're hoping. The witches may have gotten the drop on their feathered friend and could be using the angel to trap them into rushing back, putting a severely weakened and vulnerable Dean right where they want him.

No one's laying another hand on his brother, and Sam's not planning on letting Dean out of his sight. He grips the steering wheel until his knuckles blanch. "You okay, man?" He keeps his eyes pointed straight ahead, because looking over at his brother might be the thing that finally breaks him.

"Peachy," Dean grits, though he's anything but. His breathing is rapid and shallow, and he winces as he shifts carefully against the seat, white lips pressed together. "What are we gonna do if this is a trap?" he demands, like he can read his brother's mind.

Sam swallows, says firmly, "we'll save Cas, then we'll force her to lift this fucking spell."

Dean doesn't respond, and Sam's eyes finally tick over. His brother's eyes are closed, chin dropped against his chest. His hands still randomly tremble where they lay lax in his lap, but aside from that he doesn't move. He figures Dean's just nodded off, and it's probably for the best that his brother grab some sleep while he can. They've just passed the state line, and still have a hell of a haul left to the bunker. Then Dean's hand jerks and his head snaps back, eyes rolling rapidly behind half-closed lids.

"Dean?" Sam's attention is torn between the dark stretch of highway and his suddenly seizing brother. He sends the Impala to the side of the road and throws the car into 'park,' grabs his brother by the shoulders. "Dean!"

He calls for his brother twice more before Dean sucks in a shuddering breath and opens his eyes, peers up at Sam without really seeing him. "D'you…do you see him?"

Sam shakes his head, gaze reflexively darting all over the car. "Dean, I don't see anything. "His heart trips erratically in his chest, and he knows who Dean's talking about. _Dad._ He shifts his arm around Dean's shoulder and pulls his brother closer, almost without realizing he's doing it. Almost.

It's enough an intrusion of his precious personal space to rouse Dean's senses. He raises a shaking hand, pats Sam's arm. "Dude," he croaks. "Quit huggin' me."

Sam swallows, nods against the top of his brother's sweaty head. "Then quit doin' this, man. I can't take it."

Dean shrugs a shoulder, and while there isn't much strength in the motion, Sam gets the message and untangles himself, scoots back to his side of the car. He closes his fingers around the steering wheel and watches distractedly as a few cars whiz past, giving his brother a moment to collect himself. "Are you – " he starts, stops himself, bites his lip. "Was it…was there anything more than Dad?"

"No." Dean scrubs a finger under his nose. He sounds pinched and pained, his breaths coming in short, wheezing pants. "Maybe. I don't really…"

"It's okay. Just…just rest, man. Okay?"

"I'll be all right, Sammy."

Sam nods stiffly, shifting the car back into 'drive' without once looking over at his brother. Just as he thought, it'll be easier if he doesn't get an eyeful of just how godawful Dean appears, if he pretends he's fine and dandy and just letting his little brother take a rare turn behind the wheel.

But Dean isn't making it easy. Twice in the first hour back on the road, Sam jerks the Impala back to the berm and waits with helpless frustration and boundless worry as his brother throws himself from the car to vomit in the grass.

"Sam," he grunts again after only fifteen minutes, already pawing uncoordinatedly at the door handle before the car is safely stopped.

Sam follows this time, turns off the car and climbs out to stand anxiously by the hood. The ticking of the Impala's cooling engine doing little to mask the sounds of Dean being violently ill just a few feet away. The headaches are getting worse. Obviously.

"Dean?" he prompts softly, wincing in sympathy.

"Yeah," his brother chokes out. Dean clears his throat and spits, tries again. "Yeah, I'm good."

Sam rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, waits for Dean follow up that ludicrous statement by shoving up from the ground or making some smartass remark about how Little Brother Princess Panic flung himself from the car just now.

Dean does neither. He stays there on his hands and knees, bowed over the soiled grass, shoulders shaking in the moonlight.

Sam drops his arms to his sides and steps forward, heel crunching gravel, and his brother startles, turns his head and pins him in place with a look.

Dean bobs his head, spits again. He braces himself on his fingertips for a long beat before pushing up, lurching unsteadily to his feet. He stumbles drunkenly back to the car, thudding against the frame.

Sam rushes to assist his brother, helps him tuck back onto the bench seat despite Dean's weak, half-hearted grumbles of protest. He slumps against the seatback, head dropped back like his neck can no longer bear the weight of it. Sam doesn't shut the door right away, instead appraising his brother in the wash of moonlight filtering in through the wide windshield. Sweat glistens on Dean's forehead, and when he dares to face it, his brother's unhealthy pallor continues to force Sam to think of dire circumstances in the past he'd rather not dwell on.

He takes a breath, taps his fingertips against the roof of the car. "Sit tight, man."

"Wha – " Dean's eyelids flutter as he struggles to sit up straighter. He licks his lips. "Where're you goin'?"

"I'm just gonna get you some water." Sam forces a reassuring smile that feels like it might crack his face in two. "Last thing we need is for you to get dehydrated on top of everything else."

Dean squints up at him, suspicious to a fault, but weaker than either of them would like. "Yeah, okay."

At the trunk, bottle of water already in hand, Sam pauses for just a moment, staring down at the contents of their sizeable, professional-grade first aid kit, before snatching up the bottle of Temazepam.

_Well, if you guys will excuse me, I'm gonna go sleep for about four days._

It wasn't as easy as all that, though. Spurred on by the Mark of Cain, by the blood he'd spilled with the First Blade, fever and nightmare had plagued Dean for the better part of thirty-six hours while Sam listened to his brother's strangled cries from outside the door. Until it broke him, cut right through that façade of strength he'd been keeping up since Dean snuck through a window back into his life. He'd sent Cas into town with orders not to come back without something that would guarantee Dean would get some goddamn _sleep_ and had maybe scared the angel a little. Around three in the afternoon he'd brought his brother a glass of water cloudy with two of the capsules. Dean had been too out of it to notice, just drank greedily and then slept a solid, restful sixteen hours. Sam might have had to drag his groggy, senseless brother to the john once – maybe twice – but Dean didn't seem to have any memory of it, and it was worth it, for him to get the sleep he needed.

Standing at the trunk on the side of a mostly-empty highway, Sam's once again toying with the thought of drugging his brother. For Dean's own good. Always for Dean's own good, which Dean himself is completely inept as taking into consideration.

Resolved, he taps out two capsules, sparing a quick glance around the side of the car. His brother is leaning on an elbow against the door, hand tented over his forehead. Sam ducks back behind the cover of the open trunk lid and pops open the capsules, dumps the powder into the waiting water and swirls the bottle until it mixes. It's a cold night, and his breath clouds in front of his face as he pushes the trunk closed.

By the time he's dropping back into the car, Dean has dropped his hand to his lap and is awkwardly adjusting his position on the seat.

"Quit wastin' time, Sammy," he says shakily, with a zipless smirk. "Let's get moving."

This front Dean's putting up, this complete bullshit _I'm fine_ routine he's been working further solidifies Sam's resolve as he offer his brother the bottle of water. "Here."

Dean wordlessly accepts the water but dips his chin in unspoken gratitude. He drains half the bottle in a blink.

Sam watches with slight satisfaction, and a fair amount of concern. It's only a few miles down the road before he catches his brother's chin drooping out of the corner of his eye. _Don't fight it, Dean,_ he pleads silently.

But Dean doesn't know any other way. He fidgets and clears his throat, digs a knuckle into his eye. He's no match for the meds, and as he starts to drift off, confusion passes over his face, then an accusation, as he turns his head toward Sam. His nose wrinkles and his lips part like he's going to ask something, but the sedative takes hold before he can form the question. He slumps against the window, defeated, warm breath puffing a cloud of condensation on the cool glass.

Sam's shoulders fall in relief. He pats his sleeping brother's leg, then runs a palm over his face, cursing himself for the tremble in his hand.

His brother's right; that was just a B-grade spook back in Berwick, and Dean had ended up as more of a liability than back-up. This lead had better be the real deal, because Dean's running on fumes, and Sam's not sure either of them can handle the strain of even one more of these goddamn memory visions.

He has no idea what they're going to do if this is a trap. No idea what _he's_ going to do.

***

"…ean."

Hearing his name, he begins to rouse, but it's warbly and underwater-sounding. He resists the tug of the voice, feeling warm and weighted down, like he's going to have to physically claw his way back into consciousness and that's probably just not going to be worth the effort.

"Dean."

His head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, and when he orders his eyes to open they don't obey. His body jostles, shoulder bumping against a hard surface, and the movement wrests a groan of displeasure from his numb lips.

"Dean, man, wake up. We're home."

 _Home?_ He frowns, runs his tongue over Sahara-dry lips and works his eyes open. The left one is stubborn, and he immediately closes them against an onslaught of light. When he manages to open them again, there's not actually as much light as he'd thought, and Sam is staring at him from only inches away. His brother's face is a little blurry, but his eyebrows are pulled together in obvious concern.

Dean shifts his gaze, and the gray concrete walls of the bunker's garage comes into focus, the neat rows of antique, show-quality vehicles on either side of the wide body of the Impala. "Wha - ? How are we…" He loses steam, runs a hand over his face. It's taking way too much effort to process what his brother is saying to him, his sense of time is fucked, and his soupy brain is working at a snail's pace.

Sam grips his shoulder, brings Dean's gaze swinging back around. "Hey, you good? I swear I wasn't trying to…I just wanted you to get some sleep."

Dean's foot jerks, kicks something on the floormat that rolls with a soft crunch of plastic. His eyes drop to the half-empty water bottle caught between his dusty boots. That's what this is. That's why his thoughts are rolling in like low tide and his limbs feel leaden and he's, like, _seconds_ away from pissing his pants.

Sammy and his goddamned good intentions. He slipped Dean something, clearly. Knocked him out.

He's already been compromised, violated, and every damn thing in between. Sam knows that, and he should have known better than this. Anger builds in Dean's chest, warming his face, but he's already tapping into his reserves, and he doesn't nearly possess the energy required to keep it up.

His brother's fingers tighten in his sleeve, and he swallows. "Dean, just…yell at me, man. I earned it. I _drugged_ you. You should be screaming at me."

Dean lifts his chin, looks to the right. "Maybe later." He's unsettlingly aware of his own heartbeat, a slow _lub lub_ that rebounds faintly in the bruises on his face and pings sharply behind his left eye. He works his fingers around the handle, throws open the impossibly heavy door and rotates his sore, tired body to lurch out of the car. He manages one wobbly step away from the car before he trips over his own slow-moving feet and falls against the side of the Impala.

Sam's at his side before he can regain his balance, tugging at his sleeve and trying to pull him upright. Now that's Dean's gotten his body moving, the pain is clicking into place. Tightness in his neck and back, a fiery flare in his temple nestled beneath a soft crinkling of gauze, and a dull, steady throb along his bruised side. He's not sure how far he can walk on his own right now, but Sam dragging his ass through the bunker isn't an option.

Cas could be in trouble, he remembers with a sharp inhale, and he shrugs his brother away, a miniscule display of the frustration Sam wants to see.

"All right." Sam obliges, holding his hands aloft. "You got it?"

"Yeah, I got it." Dean rolls his head on his shoulders and sets a course for the short stairs that lead out of the garage. He shoves open the door, nearly tumbles into the dim corridor. "Cas?"

Sam, Sir Grabby Hands himself, tugs at his elbow, silences him with a look. He has his pistol in hand and seems concerned that Dean doesn't have his.

And – _shit, yeah_ – that makes pats down his pockets, can't locate his 1911 but comes up with his switchblade. His brother makes a face and gently pushes him aside, taking the lead.

Dean nods stiffly, and they continue down the tiled corridor. The bunker halls aren't entirely dark; random lights are on in the kitchen and library, evidence that Cas has been moving around the space in their absence. The library tables are covered with a week's worth of research: heavy books, scattered papers, and printed images of the spellwork stamped all over his back.

Dean shifts his shoulders reflexively, then reaches down to tug Castiel's cell free of a stack of papers. He holds it up for Sam to see, presses a few buttons. "Last call was yesterday, to you." He tosses the phone back to the table, scans the large room. "Where the hell is he?"

"Dungeon?"

They head that way, with a stealth they're unaccustomed to needing in their own home. The corridors remain quiet and still. No sign of danger, but no sign of Cas, either. The hallway door to the holding room they've come to refer to as the dungeon is ajar, a faint triangle of light marking the floor of the hallway. Sam motions for his brother to stay back, and while Dean's first thought is _fuck that_ , he doesn't have a gun. Sam does.

"You're back."

Dean startles at the voice behind him, whirls and knocks an elbow into the tile. "Jesus, Cas," he says shakily, dragging a hand down his face. "Hello to you, too."

Castiel eyes the gun in Sam's hand with a mix of wariness and annoyance, and he quickly tucks it away. "Cas, you okay?"

"You look terrible," he says in place of an answer, narrowed gaze pinned on Dean's face.  
Dean rolls his eyes and straightens, likewise appraising his friend. The angel's eyes are red-rimmed, the rest of his face waxy and pale. His posture is slumped, and he seems swallowed by his trench coat. "Speak for yourself, Cas."

Castiel enjoys being the center of conversation about as much as Dean himself does. He ignores the comment altogether, jerks his chin toward the open door. "The witch is restrained in there."

A chill drops down Dean's spine as he leans to peek into the room, and his head swims from the motion.

Sam steadies him, then turns his attention back to Castiel. "Cas, how – how in the hell did you find her?"

"She signed her name to the spell."

Sam's eyebrows jump. "She what?"

Cas digs into the pocket of his coat, produces a blown-up image of the intricate, invasive spellwork and hands it off to Sam.

"What the hell is that?" Dean asks, squinting at the image over his brother's arm, even as he fidgets uneasily. Between two of the Enochians symbols marking his skin, a small flourish has been circled with a thick marker.

"It's her mark," Cas offers reluctantly, no doubt knowing the effect that word will have on Dean. "I found a similar signature in several amateur spells that have been cast in the area."

"All right." Dean straightens. He sniffs, dons his best poker face. Witches have always given him the creeps. Even the hot ones. "Let's see what she knows."

Cas moves aside to let them through the door before himself, and Sam softly asks "s'that her?"

"Yeah," Dean confirms.

She shackled to the straight-backed wooden chair, with slouched shoulders and a bored look on her familiar, pretty face. She didn't allow herself to be taken prisoner easily; her honey-colored hair is a matted tangle over his left ear, and her lipstick has smudged. As they enter the room, she looks up from her task of picking at a polished fingernail, expression brightening. "Well, hey there, Dean. I've missed you."

_"You wanna get out of here?"_

_He draws his head away, leans back on his stool and offers her an apologetic smile. "Maybe some other time."_

_Her pouty look of disappointment is great for his ego, but her icy blue eyes flash with something…more. Dean's head is pleasantly buzzy with beer, but he suddenly feels uneasy. Exposed. He squares back up to the bar, keeping the extra distance between them._

_"Have a drink with me?"_

_He tilts his chin back toward her and, after a beat, nods an acceptance to her counteroffer. "Sure." He motions the bartender over and orders another whiskey, because the beer's just not cutting it. Not tonight. The man steps away to pour and Dean looks appraisingly at his new drinking buddy, whose name he hasn't even caught. "What about you?"_

_She grins the exact sort of gleefully dangerous grin that usually gets him into all sorts of trouble, and leans in to intercept Dean's drink as it hits the counter. She sips the whiskey while watching him over the rim of the glass, licks her lips as she slides the drink to Dean across the water-stained bar top. "Same."_

"Guess I shouldn't have taken you up on that drink," Dean deadpans, though his skin crawls at the memory.

She shrugs, purses her lips suggestively. "Night could've gone a whole different direction if you hadn't."

He grins in spite of himself, drawing a long-suffering sigh from his brother. "Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah." She shifts in the chair, rolling her shoulders and waggling her eyebrows. "Would've been so much more fun to get you out of that shithole by force."

At his side, Sam tenses, and Dean narrows his eyes. "Never did catch your name."

"No, I guess you didn't." She tosses her hair, and the cuffs around her wrists rattle. "Eleanor. Nice to finally meet you."

"Wish I could say the same, Eleanor."

"Call me Ellie."

"Whatever." Dean raises his eyes and gestures vaguely, taking in the whole of the room. "Sorry about the digs."

"Don't be. It's not the worst I've had. Besides, your boy's been keeping me comfortable." She winks at Castiel.

"I've done no such thing," Cas retorts, face drawn and serious.

"You need to lighten up." Ellie shifts her gaze, finds Sam and nods her approval, lips curling into a smile. "Could've been you, Sammy. We could've had a good time."

Dean's stomach roils. "Sorry, sweetheart. Sam met his evil skank quota a few years back." He feels his brother stiffen, but Sam knows the dig in his comment isn't aimed at him.

Ellie's shoulders fall, and the boredom returns to her pretty face. "So what's the plan here, fellas? How long you gonna keep me locked up in your freaky sex dungeon?"

Sam is a hulking presence at his side, fuming silently as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. The overhead lights might be flaring, a buzzy halo effect that's not doing any favors to Dean's pounding head, and as his Jello-y legs wobble, he might have to stick a hopefully-subtle hip against the edge of the desk to stay standing, but his brother seems content to let him do the talking for the time being. Cas, too. And, yeah, he figures for all he's been through the past several days, he's earned that much.

"You should take this seriously." Dean maintains a grave tone, intimidating but non-violent, just aiming to keep her talking until she inevitably trips up. "You're not the first witch we've had chained up in here."

"Kinky." She sniffs, makes an exaggerated gagging noise. "Rowena. I thought it smelled like a dead thing in here."

The persistent pulse in Dean's temple ramps up in its intensity, and he blinks, sways.

His brother clears his throat, drags the chair from behind the desk and swings it around. After Dean sinks it as casually as he can manage, Sam steps to the side, crosses his arms. "You know Rowena?"

Ellie's blue eyes tick between them. "Oh, God. Are you gonna play 'good cop, bad cop'?"

"There's no cop," his brother says calmly. So calmly, in fact, that it draws Dean's gaze. "There's no game. There's just me."

Sam and the witch stare at each other, and Dean's breath stutters in his chest as he keeps his wary eyes on his brother's tense, ramrod-straight posture.

Then Sam comes unhinged, launching at Eleanor like he was shot from a canon. He gets a hand around her throat before Dean can even think about holding him back, shoves the chair back into the wall with an ear-splitting scrape against the concrete floor. Cas makes no move to intervene, and Ellie chokes as Sam squeezes.

"What the hell did you do to my brother?" he shouts, his red face only inches from hers.

"Sam!" Dean barks, jumping out of his chair and stumbling to his brother's side. He wraps a hand around Sam's rock-hard upper arm and tries to drag him away from the girl, but Sam's running on caffeine and fury, and Dean doesn't have anywhere near enough strength to dislodge him. He's gotta figure Sam knew that as soon as his sorry ass took the bait with that chair. "Sam, dammit, you're gonna kill her!"

"Good," Sam seethes. "Undo the spell, _now._ "

"I can't," Ellie wheezes, eyes bulging and cheeks turning cherry red as she fights for air. "It wasn't me."

Dean releases Sam's arm and narrows his eyes. "You messed with my drink," he accuses.

"It was just my job to get you out of the bar." She raises her chained wrists, the fingernails of her left hand digging into the meat of Sam's forearm.

"You left a signature in the spellwork," Cas argues.

"I was there." Fear and panic rise in her wide eyes. "But I didn't do any of the heavy lifting."

"Who did?" Sam yells.

"They'll kill me," Ellie whispers, and it's clear that's about the last string of words she's got breath for.

It's also clear that's not quite the answer Sam was looking for. "You think I won't?"

 _I._ Not _we._ Sammy's been coming unraveled for a while, has just exploded like a goddamned volcano, and has apparently decided he's flying solo now. And that way lies danger, for them all. He shows no sign of letting up, and Cas finally shoots Dean a worried look.

"All…they want…is…the book."

Her eyes roll up, and Dean summons all the strength he can to belt his brother in the side of the head with a gruff "get off her, Sam!"

It does the trick. Sam blinks and drops his hand away. He steps back, breathing hard and looking down at his arm like it betrayed an order. Like it was acting of its own accord, and he lost all control. But they all know differently. Sam has all kinds of switches.

Eleanor coughs, gags, and wheezes, glares up at Sam with bloodshot eyes.

Dean's eyes make a circuit of the room. He runs a hand over his mouth, then grips Sam's sleeve and tugs him toward the hall. "Come on, tough guy. Watch her," he orders Cas, jabbing a finger toward Ellie. He pretends the entire way that he doesn't need the hold on his brother to stay on his feet.

In the hallway, Sam pushes his hands through his hair and blows out a long breath. "I-I'm sorry, man. I don't know what got into me."

Yeah, he does, and so does Dean. It's a protective, fiery rage he's felt several times himself, quite recently. "I would've done the same thing," he tells his brother honestly.

Sam huffs. "Yeah, and I would have stopped you."

"You stopped yourself."

"But why? I mean, she is not good news, Dean, whether she cast the spell or not. We can't just sit back and act like that's any other girl in there."

"Yeah." Dean sighs, resists the urge to rub his tired eyes, his pounding head. "Okay." He flattens a palm against his brother's chest. "This time, you just…stand there. Shut up."

Eleanor's still wheezing when they reenter the room, cheeks flushed and neck glowing bright red. She scowls but at Sam, but there's a touch of fear in her ice-blue eyes.

Dean's eyes land longingly on the chair he'd jumped from, but he won't sit again. It's not often that he does the talking while Sam is the muscle in the room. He wraps his palms over the back, leaning his weight into his arms, and raises his eyebrows. "You ready to make this easy on yourself?"

She laughs, a hoarse, broken sound that leaves her coughing. "Yeah," she drawls, voice a raspy mess. "You see, the thing is? I haven't just been sitting here thinking about what a bad girl I've been."

There's something off about her tone, the same dangerous edge that left Dean feeling wary and uneasy in the bar. Ellie lowers her chin and murmurs a single word, something he doesn't recognize. A force builds in the room, turns the air hot and prickly and presses on Dean's skull. Sam's pawing at his arm, pulling him away from her and out of the room, all the way back into the hall.

A spike of pain takes his legs out from under him, and he'd hit the ground if not for his brother's strong grip on his arm as he hauls him down the corridor.

_"What did you do with the book?"_

_"Not to worry, old friend. It's in a safe place."_

_The room –_

the hallway, the bunker

_– tilts, and he's staring up at the ceiling._

Heart tripping, head pounding, he licks his lips.

_He has to think clearly, and quickly. Has to think of what's at stake. "Where's the book?"_

"What book, Dean?"

_"It's in a safe place."_

"Mm." He falls against the inviting softness of his mattress, presses fingertips against his closed eyes. The voices echo as they fade away, and other sensations flood in to fill the open space: the soft hiss of air circulating through the vent overhead, and the familiar scents of his room, gun oil and spray deodorant. "Son of a bitch took off with it."

"Who, Magnus?"

Dean groans in the affirmative, rolls his head against a pillow.

"What book did Magnus take, Dean?" Sam asks insistently, jostling the mattress and forcing him to stay on this side of consciousness.

"I don't _know_ , Sam," he grits, working open one eye. The room is dark, the glint in his brother's eyes coming from the hallway. "He told Henry – told him it was in a safe place."

"Okay, just…" Sam is silent a long moment, and Dean knows his brother is running through the clues, piecing together what they've learned and formulating a theory.

And good on him, the fuckin' nerd. Dean's just trying to keep his brain from liquifying and leaking out of his ears. He closes his eyes and focusing on steady breathing, feeling like his body is bobbing in choppy waves.

"Son of a bitch," Sam curses.

Dean groans, gets that one eye open again, with significantly more effort. "What?"

"That son of a _bitch._ "

"Sam, _what?_ "

His brother stamps his foot, shakes his head incredulously. "Well, we already know of one dangerous book Magnus put in a safe place."

It takes Dean's rattled, tortured mind a long moment to sift through what's been real and what's just been an image remembered from someone else. He blinks up at Sam, inhales sharply. "The Werther Box. The – the Codex."

Sam folds his arms over his chest, nods. "Yeah."

Dean squints, blood pounding in his head. "You think this entire thing has been about something we already have in the damn bunker?"

"Starting to sound like it."

"We can't give them that book, Sam."

"You think I don't know that?" Sam snaps. He drags a hand down his face, bites his lip and bobs his head. "Okay. Okay, we're gonna figure this out."

Dean snorts, rolls his head away from his brother. He sighs, closing his eyes. "You know, for a second there, I was almost stupid enough to think I was gonna get out of this one with less than I deserve."

Sam mutters under his breath, something that sounds like stupid ass. He grips Dean's shoulder with bruising force and rolls him back. The darkness in the room makes his expression look like a mask, frustrated and set, jaw clenched. "For the last time, none of this is anything you _deserve,_ Dean. Yes, okay, you made a rash decision when you took the Mark from Cain, and I would have stopped you if I'd been there." His face falls. "But I wasn't. And that – that's on me. Anything that you…it's all just as much my responsibility."

Dean sighs, and the exhale radiates through his abused body, turns up the dial on the pressure in his hot, heavy head. He closes his eyes, tents a hand over them. "Whatever you say, Sam." He means for it to be snarky, wants his brother to hear _shut the hell up,_ but he doesn't quite have enough left in the tank to get his tone there, and he knows the words just come out weak, sick, and defeated.

He's startled by the sudden sound of water running across the room. Dean's always prided himself on his awareness, something that's kept him alive more than once, but he hadn't even sensed – let alone heard – Sam stepping away from the bed. Before he can focus enough to collect himself, his brother is patting the hand Dean has draped over his eyes.

"Here."

Dean wraps his fingers around the cool glass Sam puts in his hand, sips gratefully. When he's finished, his brother takes the glass back and sets it aside on the table. Then Sam turns back slowly, watching Dean carefully. Thoughtfully.

"Get some rest," he says finally, somewhat stiffly.

Dean frowns, struggles up onto an elbow. He really looks at his brother, seeing the toll this is taking on Sam. The too-pale complexion and askew hair, the purple smudges of exhaustion ringing his wide eyes. "What are you gonna do, Sam?"

He shakes his head solemnly. "Nothing, Dean. I swear."

Sam can swear all he wants, but neither man believes him, and Dean knows he can't let himself fall asleep.

***

This place was built for secrets, and solitude, but sound travels. The ductwork has nowhere else to go, no option but to carry every noise and redistribute it through the entire bunker. Every time Sam opens a door, he's convinced the others can hear, because he can hear each creak and groan of old metal as Dean navigates the halls, as he stomps from the kitchen to the library. He's supposed to be resting, because that vision, or whatever the hell it was, that the witch forced onto him scared the shit out of Sam. But of course, his brother's as stubborn as they come, and he's not one to lie down on the job.

Dean's still harboring a hell of a lot of guilt, and will no doubt be feeling that he's responsible for every mess they step in from here on out, because of the Mark and the Darkness and whatever comes from its release. He won't listen to reason, won't accept that this is all on Sam. That this is a new threat that came forth because of _Sam's_ actions and decision, not Dean's.

His brother has nothing to feel guilty over, or responsible for, and he really should be resting.

But he's not. He's prowling the corridors with an unsteady gait. So long as he stays away from the general dungeon area, Sam will deal with him later. He's operating with single-minded focus at the moment, because the episode in the diner was frightening for both of them but whatever happened in the dungeon earlier felt like dying, even for Sam.

He's trying to be discrete and silent, and he winces as the heavy door opens with a long scrape against the concrete.

Despite the ring of rising bruises around her neck, Eleanor perks up as he slides the next door open, and he can tell from her smug expression that she understands completely that he's not here with the full knowledge and support of the rest of the team.

"Have to say," she says with a smirk. "Didn't figure you for the rule-breaker of the family."

"You don't know anything about me." Sam weighs his options, fingers the keys in his pocket as he narrows his eyes at the chains jangling around Ellie's slim wrists. There's a pistol tucked in the waistband of his jeans, chamber loaded with an etched witch-killing bullet.

Eleanor straightens in the uncomfortable chair, a coy smile playing at the corner of her smeared red lips. She doesn't speak again, just raises her shackled hands like an offering.

Sam shakes his head, a jerky motion. "I'm not here to let you out." Every word of what he says next feels dark and dirty on his tongue. "I'm here to make a deal."

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines used in this chapter:
> 
> "Dean, I don't see anything." - might have used this one already, but it wasn't marked on my master list, so I used it again.
> 
> The episode in the diner was a frightening moment for both of them but whatever happened in the motel room this morning felt like dying, even for Sam.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three

Eleanor tilts her head. The witch is clearly intrigued but trying not to show it, which makes her interest all that more obvious to Sam. She's right where he wants her to be.

And he's right where she wants him to be. Desperate. Willing to sneak in here without his brother's knowledge or permission. Sam knows he shouldn't be doing this, doesn't want the Codex in the witches' hands any more than Dean does. But if that's what it takes to save his brother, he'll do it. They can figure out the rest later, and he'll deal with the repercussions.

He's done this before, too recently not to be top of mind. Deals and unsavory partnerships behind Dean's back, and he swore to never do so again. It's in the past and best left that way, but with his back against a wall again, Sam forgives his brother all over again for Gadreel. For Kevin. He gets why Dean did what he did.

"I think you're confused, Sammy." She pouts, drops her chained hands to her lap. He voice is still wrecked from earlier, but Sam doesn't feel the least bit of sympathy, or regret. "I'm not a demon. I don't make deals."

"Anyone will make a deal, if it gets them something they want." He steps closer, feeling the Taurus in his waistband shift. Ellie and her coven don't know what they've gotten themselves into, pushing Sam Winchester into a corner, using his brother like this. "There's something _you_ want, and I just happen to have it."

Her façade comes down like a house of cards, and she nearly jerks out of her chair in excitement, held back with a jangle of chains. Ellie's eyes gleam, and her runs her tongue over her lips. "You have the book?"

"We've had it the whole time." Sam relishes the power shift in the small room, smirking cockily as he pulls the key from the pocket of his jeans. "We came across the Codex a few weeks back."

"So where is it? Is it here?" Ellie raises her eyebrows to the ceiling, curling her lip. "In this…charming little hovel you've found?"

"It's in a safe place." A chill runs through Sam, and he swallows as he crams the key back into his pocket, withdraws his cell phone instead. "Now do your part and arrange a meet-up with the rest of your coven."

"Hostage exchange?" She leans back in her chair and crosses her right leg over her left, a cool, collected posture as she works to regain the upper hand. "How do I know you're not just saying whatever you need to, to save your brother?"

"I guess you're just gonna have to trust me."

She shrugs. "Then what if I say no?"

Sam frowns, fingers tightening around the phone. "This is exactly what you wanted when you put that curse on Dean. Why the hell would you say no?"

"It'd be so easy," Ellie says, ignoring Sam's question and frustration. She rolls her shoulders lazily, eyes drifting across the room. "To kill you, your troublesome – though gorgeous – brother, and whatever that other guy is, take the Codex and anything else you idiots are hiding in this place?" Her gaze shifts back, cold blue eyes meeting his. "There's some real power here, Sammy."

Acid roils in Sam's stomach, hearing his nickname in her voice. "You'd have to get out of those chains first."

"Oh, yeah." Ellie lifts one arm and cocks her head, studying the engraved iron wrapping her wrist. "That might take me a bit to figure out. What do you think? Two days?" She levels a cruel smile. "I might not have created it, but I know what that spell does, Sam. Does Dean have two days?"

Sam stalks across the space and leans in aggressively, throwing a lot of heat and _do not fuck with me_ into the glare he levels right back at her. She bears the bruising marks from the last time Sam was this close, and for all her bravado, Ellie visibly flinches. "I'm offering you exactly what you want. Trust me when I tell you that you want to take this deal."

She bites her bottom lip, makes a noise in her throat that sets Sam's skin crawling. Ellie's eyes trail over his face, then shift to look at something over Sam's shoulder. "I have to say, Dean, I'm really starting to like your brother."

Sam's heart lurches and his eyes widen as he whirls. Dean is leaning on a hand against the wall, face gray and eyes dull. From the looks of him, he's barely standing, and he shouldn't be standing _here_ , of all places. To judge the pissed-off look on his face, he's been here long enough to hear the worst part of the conversation. "Dude, what the hell?" He rushes to his brother's side, drags him easily out of the room and all the way into the hall. "You're supposed to be resting."

Dean's eyes harden as he wrenches his arm free of his brother's grasp. The motion sends him stumbling off-balance, breath catching in a pained hiss. "And you're supposed to be staying from her. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"We have to do _something_ , Dean." Sam argues, face flushing as he fights to keep his voice low. The last thing they need is the damn witch sensing some vulnerability she can exploit. "These visions aren't just going to stop because we know what they're after. We're running out of time, and I'm going to do what I have to, to help you, man. To _fix_ this."

Ellie's right; they don't have two days. His brother is in pain – a lot of it. His breathing is irregular, harsh and loud in the narrow hallway, like it's hurting him. "Not this way, Sam." In true Dean-style, he doesn't seem to give a damn what Eleanor thinks, or he's just channeling too much of his waning energy into staying upright to worry about keeping his voice down. He shakes his head, and a droplet of sweat slips from his temple. "Since when do we give the bad guys what they want?"

"Since it's killing you, Dean!" Sam gives up on discretion and all but shouts at his brother, knocking him back until he connects with the tiled wall behind him.

Sam takes a step back himself, pushes his hands through his hair and interlaces his fingers at the back of his neck. He takes a few deep breaths, struggling to settle his racing heart. He's exhausted, hasn't slept nearly enough over the past several days, and has been introduced to brand-new levels of stress. He knows he's not thinking clearly, knows he's crossing every line his father and brother raised him to recognize and respect – he _knows_ that. But there's also a crack in his foundation, and it widens considerably every time he's forced to look Dean in the eye.

"I just got you back," he says quietly, without turning to face his brother.

"Back? From…" Dean sucks in a sharp, audible inhale. "This is still about the Mark?"

Sam sighs and crosses his arms. He rotates his body to face Dean but finds a safe spot down the hall for his eyes to land, away from the judgement and undue sympathy of his brother. "The only reason you even took that damn thing from Cain is because of me. Because I pushed you away. And then you _died_ , Dean. And…"

"And then I became a demon." Dean huffs, a humorless chuckle as he folds his own arms over his chest and scuffs the heel of his boot across the concrete. "If you're this damn set on reliving our worst hits, Sammy, let's not leave anything out. And while you're worrying about all the things you're responsible for, you might not wanna leave out that you're the one who got that thing out of me."

Sam feels his brother's eyes boring into the side of his head for a few long, quiet moments before Dean continues.

"Look, Sam, you wanna take the blame for what's happened? I get it. I might not agree with it, but I get it. That's kind of our signature move. But you cannot do this. I won't let you do this." He pauses again, waits for Sam to raise his eyes. "We'll find another way."

Sam lifts his shoulder. "What if there isn't another way?"

"There is," Dean responds firmly. "I'm not going anywhere." His lips lift in a smirk that never had a chance of reaching his exhausted eyes. "You obviously need me."

 _More than you know._ Sam traps the sentiment behind clenched teeth, won't let their VIP guest get her hands – or ears – on that.

"You also need some rest, man," says the pot to the kettle. "How long's it been since you tried to get more than two hours of sleep?"

Sam rubs a hand over his forehead, huffs. "Yeah, I guess it's been a while."

"Well, there's no sense in both of us being dead on our feet."

His head whips up, and he frowns disapprovingly. "That's not funny."

"Oh, come on, Sam." D0ean's weary impression of a smile widens. "It's a little funny."

***

Sam tries to get some sleep, but despite Dean's very valid points, can't. He's probably an asshole for even trying, between the witch shackled in the dungeon with a well-meaning but severely underpowered angel keeping watch, and his brother down the hall with a brand-new egg timer on his shoulder. Because the Winchesters can't ever seem to catch a damn break.

His brother has one hell of a game face – always has – but Sam can't remember the last time Dean's eyes were honestly cheerful, without a glint of pain or darkness. Because Dean _always_ has a timer on his shoulder.

_A couple of weeks. At most, maybe a month._

_One year. I got one year._

_If Lucifer burns this mother down and I could've done something about it, guess what? That's on me._

_Dean, wielding the Blade against Cain, himself…win or lose, you may never come back from that fight._

Even when it's _Sam_ who's staring down the tunnel at a bleak, painful, and inevitable end, his big brother takes the weight – and the responsibility – for himself. He did it with Yellow Eyes, with the Croatoan virus, with the trials.

He really admires the way Dean is able to remain cocky and confident in the face of adversity and certain doom, the way he gets up off the mat when he's knocked down, because it never seems to stop coming. _Never._ Hit after threat after curse after loss after one more fucking _hit_ , a vicious cycle of pain and grief that his brother never seems to let keep him down for long. They way Sam figures Dean sees it, when he should have been dead, naturally and honestly and so many yeas ago, there's really no point in giving into the despair of another sentence on his head now. He keeps pushing, and keeps fighting, and he always manages to come out the other side acting like nothing even happened.

But the act doesn't stop Sam from seeing the damage collecting in his brother's dark eyes.

He lies still, blinking up at the ceiling for what must be hours, unable to switch off his busy brain long enough to sleep. Every now and then he checks the time on his watch, which does nothing to help him relax. Sometime around 3AM he gives up altogether, pulls himself from his bed with a groan and, under the guise of taking a leak, pads barefoot down the dim hall to his brother's room.

He pauses outside Dean's closed bedroom door, about to cross an unspoken but mutually assured boundary, and not really caring. After having to haul his weak-kneed brother through the bunker to his room for the second time in mere hours, Sam hadn't been very happy with the thought of leaving him alone for the night. But Dean had been adamant that he was going to sleep in his own room, in his own bed, and without a damn babysitter.

"They have no idea we've got the book, Sam. As far as they know, they can't get what they're after if I'm dead." His face gray and lined, shoulders dropped and movements growing more and more sluggish. Not as convincing as he'd probably wanted to believe, but Sam had a hard time not giving Dean what he asked for.

He tests the knob and is mildly surprised when it turns without resistance. Sam's been clingy and panicky of late, not traits that his brother reacts well to, but Dean hasn't locked him out. And that might be more a testament to the trust he's violating by carefully, quietly pushing open the door.

Light from the hallway spills into the room, illuminating the box of clothing he'd washed for his brother last week, the line of empty beer bottles on the desktop, and finally Dean, stretched stiffly beneath the covers, his face turned away from the doorway.

It used to be enough, just knowing Dean was close. That he was here. There was more than one long night when Sam stood outside this door, straining to hear the faintest hint of noise from within the room, a muted drone of his music or computer or, hell, even the neck of a bottle of whiskey kissing the rim of a glass with a _clink._ That used to be where the line was, used to be all the reassurance Sam needed, to know that his brother was okay.

It's not enough anymore. Things are different now. This uneasiness won't fade away until Sam feels the steady beat of his brother's heart for himself, a puff of breath against the back of his hand. Hard evidence that Dean's _okay._ That he's _here_ , and he's not going anywhere.

He warily steps farther into the room, closer to Dean than he should be without waking his brother. He has a pair of thin white scars on his right forearm that are evidence of that. There's a bottle on the floor next to the bed, within arm's reach. Sam takes note of its presence but tears his eyes away before he confirms the contents. He's already invading his brother's physical privacy, and that means he needs to at least make an effort to respect what little remains of his mental and emotional privacy.

Dean twitches, but it's clear the movement is due to his dreaming and not because he senses Sam in the room. He inhales sharply, mutters something breathy and unintelligible.

Sam has a split-second to make the decision between leaving his brother to suffer through another mind-fuck of a nightmare or wake him and incur the wrath of an aggressively private man who's had just about every carefully-constructed fraternal boundary bulldozed right over. A shudder runs through his brother's body, and Dean looses another low, throaty sound of distress. That noise makes the decision for him.

He leans over the bed and squeezes his brother's shoulder. "Dean, man, wake up."

Dean's head rolls toward him. His hand drags sluggishly out from beneath his pillow and he blinks sleepily up at his brother. "What're you doin'?" he mumbles, one eye squeezed shut against the glare of hallway light.

Sam pulls his head away quickly, sinks to the edge of the mattress. "You were, uh, you were dreaming pretty hard, man."

He wrinkles his nose, shakes his head. "I don't remember."

 _Sure, you don't._ Sam's pretty surprised his brother hasn't whacked him upside the head for coming into his room uninvited, in the middle of the night. He frowns. In fact, it's probably more concerning than it is surprising. "You good?"

Dean closes his eyes and sighs, rolls away to face the wall. "I'm fine, Sam. Go to sleep."

"Yeah." Even so, Sam finds himself pausing a moment, holding his breath and waiting for his brother to fall back asleep.

"In your own room."

"Right. Sorry."

***

Dean wakes feeling cold. Electricity in the bunker comes from a line of antiquated, humming generators, and heat down here is spotty at best. It's not uncomfortable by any means, but it's far from cozy.

He's never been one to waste his breath complaining about what he can't control, and he's never had the luxury of regulating that type of environmental factor. He's never been one to bitch about the temperature of a room the way Sammy has. He'd learned a very long time ago the value of dressing in layers. They were always cold as kids, and he'd bundled Sammy up the best he could, given his little brother all the extra blankets and his own jacket.

Even when he spent that year with Lisa and the kid, he'd had zero control over the thermostat. Lisa had always been cold; whether it was the dead of winter or a sunny summer day, she'd kept the house at a balmy seventy-three.

He doesn't remember Hell as hot. There was pain, and there was blood and despair, but he hadn't really had the energy to spare to give a flying fuck about the temperature when he was being split open for sport. He doesn't remember flames.

Purgatory had been the exception. A world steeped in mugginess. He'd sweated like a whore in church the entire year he was stuck there. Dean had come back into the world frozen to the bone and unable to help his brother understand this one more thing about him that had come back different. That had come back changed for good.

This particular cold can't be counteracted with layers of clothing or blankets but is one that feels stuck to him. A lethargic, unshakeable feeling, a heaviness in his limbs. Dean extracts his right hand from the tangled covers and holds it in front of his face, makes a fist. Ice shoots from his fingers to his wrist and up his forearm. His energy is fading, his circulation slowing. It's a cold that feels like his heart's just taken a jolt there's no coming back from.

It's a cold that feels like creeping death.

He's not sure if he remembers Sam barging into his room last night or if he dreamed it. It's become nearly impossible to distinguish what he's dreamed, what's been Henry's memory in a vision, and what might actually be a memory of his own.

Sam's getting desperate, and while he's always had more sense in his head than Dean's ever had in his own, desperation leads to awful decision-making. Like crossroad deals, like making friends with demons, like taking on the Mark of Cain. Like what almost happened last night, when he interrupted his brother attempting a trade with the witch.

They can't do that. That's a line he can't allow his brother to cross, can't relinquish that kind of knowledge and power to these witches. Dean's not _worth_ that. Not even close.

It's true that they don't have an excess of time left to figure this out. If they're going to get him uncursed, it's gotta be done _now._ And if they don't…what then?

Last night, he said something to his brother that's stuck with him like the creeping cold that's taking over his body.

_They don't know we have the book, Sam. As far as they, know, they can't get what they're after if I'm dead._

Because that's not entirely true. If Dean's heart succumbs to the cold, if it gives out before they find a way to break the curse, there's no reason the coven won't move onto Sammy, and start the entire process over again, until they get that damn book.

And he can't let that happen.

***

Sam has a much clearer head when he wakes. He can't believe what he tried to do, what he almost did. Dean walked him back from the brink of doing something really stupid, the same way he's had to haul his brother away from the edge on more than one occasion.

He's surprised to see that he's slept through the morning and moves with some urgency down the hall to his brother's room, only to find it empty. He does his best not to panic, reminds himself that Dean's not on bedrest, or lockdown, and he's perfectly capable of moving about the halls of his own home if he's feeling up to it.

Sam finds his brother in the library, parked at one of the wide tables covered with research and books, with a pen in his hand, the end tapping against a yellow legal pad scrawled over in his blocky writing.

"Hey," Sam greets with a frown. "How long you been up?"

Dean grunts a greeting in response, tosses down his pen and rubs his eyes with both fists. "I don't know, man, like…" He drops his wrist into his eyeline and squints at his watch. "Few hours, I guess."

He doesn't _look_ like he slept, though Sam knows he did, broken by nightmares and discomfort. His brother looks ill in a way Sam can't even think about without his heart twisting and tearing with the memory of _at most, maybe a month._

Sam puts it all back in the box it belongs, swallows a lump that feels like he's on the verge of crying like a baby, and steps up to the table. He peeks at Dean's notes, spots a few pages covered in his own writing in the mix. A sketch of the full triangular layout of the spell, a list of what they've been able to translate, and a much longer list of what they haven't. "Where's Cas?"

"Resting?" Dean lifts a shoulder, leans back heavily in his chair. "Haven't seen him."

Sam narrows his eyes, appraising his brother's pale face. "You eat anything?"

"Nah." Dean picks up his pen but makes no move to use it for anything beyond another stuttered drum solo against his notepad.

He's trying to blow Sam off, but he's not going to let his brother get away with that. "I'll make you something."

Dean doesn't look up, but he wrinkles his nose.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Fine. I'll go out and grab something."

"Yeah, okay."

Dean eats about half of the burger his brother fetches for him, and though he does so in curious silence, Sam deems it good enough to put a mark in the win column. As he's grown used to doing, he sets what remains of his own meal aside when his brother does, but this time Dean doesn't seem to notice. There's no eyeroll, no exasperated sigh. Instead, he settles back in his chair and bites the inside of his cheek, eyes narrowed in thought as he stares down at a spot on the table top next to what's left of his cheeseburger. He appears swallowed by the hooded sweatshirt he's dragged on, an article of clothing that looks out of place on his brother, making him look young and small. Vulnerable.

Everything about the way his big brother is slumped across the table has Sam feeling uneasy, with a sense of déjà vu tugging at him. He wipes his hands on a napkin, frowns. "What is it?"

His brother's eyebrows lift in acknowledgement, but there's some bit of delay before he raises his chin and meets Sam's gaze. "Hm?" Dean purses his lips, gives a slight shake of his head. "Nothin'."

Sam leans forward and squints across the table. "Dean." He doesn't continue until he has his brother's attention. "That face does not say 'nothing.' That face says you're thinking some deep thoughts over there, man." Deep thoughts and Dean has always been a combination that puts a pit in Sam's stomach.

"Hm," Dean grunts again, eyes screwed up. "Hey, Cas," he calls, tipping back in his chair. He looks exhausted, drawn and gray and just about _done._ But he's up to something, chewing his lip thoughtfully and silently regarding Sam while he waits for the angel to join them in the library.

Castiel crosses the threshold and stops short, his own weary, hooded gaze moving apprehensively between the brothers. "What is it?" he asks cautiously, because Dean's been blown wide open here, and they can both sense he's thinking something heavy.

A shrug is all Sam has to offer, and all he can do is stare at his brother while they wait for Dean to clue them in on what he's thinking.

"This crap on my back," Dean opens, hooking a thumb over his shoulder with a wince. "You've been able to translate some of it."

"Some," Cas confirms slowly, eyes darting to meet Sam's. His face falls in apology. "But not enough to remove the spell."

"No, I know, that's not what I'm – " Dean sits straighter, raps his knuckles on the tabletop. "Have you translated enough to put something together that would block a similar curse? Like, if it was cast again…could you ward against it?"

Sam gets it then, sucks in a breath. "No, Dean – "

His brother raises a hand, cutting him off. "Don't, Sam." His eyes flash, and he makes a fist with the hand in the air. "Don't."

Castiel's eyes move back and forth between them. Sam would like to think that he and the angel are on the same page when it comes to doing what's best for Dean – because he can't be trusted to do it himself – but he also knows that if his brother asks Cas to do something to protect Sam, it's pretty much a given that he'll do it.

The angel's gaze settles on Dean. "What exactly is it you're asking me to do, Dean?"

"I want you to put some kind of warding on Sam, keep them from doing this to him." Dean bobs his head. "In case I…"

Sam shoots out of his chair with a long, loud scrape. His heart pounds as he leans on his palms and glares at his brother. "No, Dean," he says firmly.

Dean lifts his shoulder but seems otherwise unaffected by his brother's tone or posture. "Sam, I'm pulling out a big brother card here. Sorry, but you don't get a say on this one."

Sam huffs. "You're talking about putting warding on _me_ , Dean, so yeah, I think I get a say."

"Can you do it?" Dean persists, ignoring his brother, eyes locked on Castiel's icy blue stare.

Cas's gaze flicks uneasily to Sam, in a way that very much means he's asking Sam what move he should make.

"Hey!" Dean barks. "Don't look at him. Look at me." It's entirely possible he's decided to cash in on all of that residual guilt Cas has been harboring over those yellowy splotches of bruising clinging stubbornly to Dean's cheek.

"Yes," Castiel answers reluctantly, shoulders slumping in his trench coat. "Yes, I can do it."

"Okay. Great." His brother smacks his palms against the polished tabletop, nods to himself. "Then that settles it."

"No, Dean," Sam fires back. "That doesn't settle it. You're not just sticking me in the penalty box here. Get your head out of your ass."

Dean cocks an eyebrow. He leans back in his chair and peers up at Sam with an amused expression. Now that he has a plan ready to be put into motion, one that saves Sam from harm, his brother looks as though a huge weight has been lifted. "I might be more insulted by the fact you just made a hockey reference than the other thing you said."

Sam stares down at him, fuming.

"We can't let them get their hands on that book, Sam."

"Yeah, we're all in agreement there."

"Are we?" Dean asks coolly.

Sam recoils. "Yes, Dean. We are."

Castiel's hooded gaze shifts back and forth between them, and a tired, frustrated look passes over his face, like he's considering summoning what energy it would take to knock them both out.

Dean rubs his hands over his face, sighs. "Look, Sam, I'm not asking you to take a knee here, I'm really not. I'm just trying to think this through logically. If we can do this, if we can keep them from getting to you and using you…that's a move that'll save _both_ our asses."

Sam frowns. "What are you talking about?"

Another sigh, this one patient, and maybe a little patronizing. "If these witches are convinced that we're the only ones who can find their damn book and we take you off the gameboard…" Dean raises a hand. "Are they gonna let me die?"

Frown deepening, Sam crosses his arms. "That's a hell of a risk to take, Dean."

"Tough. It's my risk." Dean lifts his chin, redirects his gaze to Cas. "Do it."

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts lines included in this chapter:
> 
> "Come on, Sam," Dean calls after him, but Sam refuses to look back. "It's a little funny."
> 
> "I might be more insulted by the fact you just made a hockey reference than the other thing you said."


	25. Chapter Twenty-Four

It's not as easy as all that, and Dean really should have seen it coming. Nothing with Sam is ever easy. Even deciding what to grab for dinner becomes a debate, and then a sermon, with his little brother pulling out four-dollar-words to make his point about why Dean should eat more of this and less of that. So he tends to altogether remove a sense of option the equation, just plops a plate of food in front of the kid and tells him to eat what's in front of him or he's welcome to forage for his own supper.

God, he's becoming his father.

At least Sam allows him a beer during this exercise in futility. Two, even. Dean shifts in his chair, stares disinterestedly up at his brother as he valiantly attempts to force a rational discussion that considers all angles and factors. He refuses to participate, but that's fine, because Sam seems perfectly content pacing around the head of the table and giving a little lecture. Hell, the kid practically goes through withdrawal if he doesn't get in a good argument every couple of days. Dean's mildly surprised the nerd doesn't call for a thirty-minute break, so he can slap together a goddamned PowerPoint presentation detailing the pros and cons of this idea.

And yeah, sure, he can admit that there are things to consider before they throw their own wrench into the proceedings. Cas is still reeling in the aftermath of Rowena's curse, nowhere near full power, and despite the fact he won't outwardly acknowledge it, every time they ask him to step up to the plate for Team Free Will he taps whatever reserves he's managed to build back up. He might not be capable of powering up enough to produce this ward, and if he does it might bench him for the remainder of the game. There are more witches out there, more threats than just Ellie in the dungeon. They don't know the full extent of who they're up against, or how far the witches will go to get what they want. They don't know that this won't just backfire right in their faces.

But if it saves Sam, that's all that matters to Dean. That's how this becomes one of the easiest decisions he'll ever make.

Castiel watches from across the room, leaning against one of the columns with a weary, though intense, gaze. Sammy yammers on, and Dean slouches in his chair and crosses his arms. He releases little sighs of boredom at regular intervals, until he's pretty sure Sam's considered clocking him one.

_Good._ That means the show he's putting on for his brother is working. Distracting Sam, at least for the moment, from noticing how bad this getting. How absolutely _lousy_ Dean feels. Since the visions started up again, he's felt like he's draining away even quicker than before. Despite the exhausting emotional toll of these rogue glimpses of Dad, he's physically weakening in a tangible way, like he can feel each chunk of life as it's torn from him.

"Dean."

_Crap._ He zoned out there for a second. Dean blinks and straightens, squinting up at his brother's pinched expression and struggling to recall what Sam's just said. Then he remembers that is doesn't actually matter, because his mind is made up and he's only been humoring his brother. He clears his throat. "I've thought this through, Sam. We're doing it."

Sam, clearly frustrated, runs his hands down his face. He locks eyes with Castiel over Dean's shoulder but doesn't seem to find any help there, and finally sighs in resignation. He redirects his gaze to the ceiling and shakes his head. "Whatever you say, Dean."

_Damn straight whatever I say._ Dean nods, pushes up from his chair follows his brother around the table on legs that are barely shaky. Sam jerks his chin toward Cas, then squares up with the table, bracing his hands on the edge of the polished surface.

Cas steps closer, pale face screwed up in concentration. "For what it's worth, I don't believe this will hurt." He cocks his head, considering. "Much."

Sam huffs a quick, nervous laugh. He flinches in anticipation, likely remembering the bleat of searing pain as Cas had etched the protective warding into their ribs, or the clusterfuck that had been his attempt to scrub these cursed marks from Dean's back. "Just do it if you're gonna – "

A spark erupts from Castiel's open palm, a brief burst of light that brings tears to Dean's eyes but dims and sputters out almost immediately.

Dean blinks. Resisting the urge to dig his knuckles into his aching eyes, he leans in closer, cocks an eyebrows and sniffs. "Was that it?"

Cas shakes his head, lips pursed in frustration. He drops his eyes and squeezes his hand into a fist. "I just need a moment to…" He takes a long, deep breath, then extends his hand once more toward Sam's tense shoulders.

Dean stares, transfixed, as another bloom of light builds, burning bright and bluish. The light expands, coiling protectively around Sam before concentrating on a spot high on his back. There's a white-hot flare at the spot, and this time Dean has to turn his face away. When he turns back, a pattern of residual light is superimposed over his field of vision. He blinks hard, but the reddish glare doesn't completely fade.

He scrubs at his eyes, bringing about a few dozen dancing black spots. "Okay," he coughs. "Was _that_ it?" When the spots have mostly dissipated and the room is more or less in focus, he sees Cas looking dazed and unbalanced but standing, and Sam slumped over the table, breathing hard.

"Sammy?" Suddenly panic-stricken, Dean crosses the distance between them. He summons what strength he can, pulls his heavy-ass brother up from the table and shoves him into the nearest chair. "Hey, Sam. Sammy, you okay?"

Sam clutches the arms of the chair and swallows, nods. "Yeah." He wrinkles his nose and shifts his shoulders, leans forward. "Didn't even hurt really, just…"

Hand gripping his brother's shoulder, Dean whirls on Cas. "Is he okay?" Always his first concern, but right on its heels, "did it work?" He can tell immediately from the angel's strained, wide-eyed expression that there's really no way of knowing.

He shifts his hand around to Sam's back only to pull away with a hiss. There's a strange, extreme heat radiating from the spot, and while Dean is surprised not to find a burn mark across his palm, Sam doesn't react, doesn't even seem to notice. Dean yanks down the collar of his brother's shirt, wresting a throaty noise of protest from Sam, and reveals a single Enochian sigil high on his right shoulder. A thin white line, like a cut that had scarred over some time ago.

Dean releases the shirt with a huff. "Well, good news, Sammy. It's a hell of a lot more subtle than mine." He claps a palm to the spot as he steps away.

Sam barks a pained laugh, winces. "Mm. Okay, maybe it stings a little. Mostly it just…tingles."

"Okay. Overshare." Dean wrinkles his nose, but nods. A few spots still float in front of his eyes, and a dull pain begins to thump at the base of his skull. A sudden, sweeping sense of vertigo threatens to swing the room around on him and he sticks out a blind hand, reflexing seeking a way to steady himself, fumbling for purchase on the back of a chair or one of the tables. His fingers close around smooth wood, and he tightens them in a desperate grip, leaning most of his weight onto his right arm as he draws slow, deliberate breaths.

His brother makes a face, reaches back to feel out the fresh ridges on his shoulder. "Cas, you okay?" His voice doesn't sound quite right: warbly, too much bass.

Cas nods but his face is grayish and unconvincing. He opens his mouth but closes it quickly, turning his narrowed gaze toward Dean.

Dean notices the attention, even if he can't quite figure out _why_ Cas is staring at him. He tries to wave off the concern, tries to straighten, and the room tilts sickeningly.

"Dean?"

He tries to say _yeah_ , tries to say he's fine, tries to say _anything_ to put the others at ease, but all that comes out is a dry, wordless rasp. His ears are ringing, a piercing buzz that builds until it's the only thing he can hear. He squints up at his brother, watching Sam's lips moving and trying to make out his voice through the disorienting ring. Sam's eyes are wide, his face pale, and Dean can't hear anything he's saying.

Sam leans in closer, and from this distance it's easy to see that he's very clearly saying, shouting, pleading: _Dean._

Dean shakes his head, and the ringing recedes enough to finally allow him to hear his brother, the panicky, high-pitched "hey, hey, hey, sit down." And that's not the worst idea Sam's ever had, because the library is tilting again, or maybe this time it's Dean. Either way, there's a hand at his elbow, tugging him down into a chair. He nods along as he's forcibly relocated, and he jars every already-aching corner of his body when he drops more heavily than he means to.

Sam crouches, hand on Dean's knee and eyebrows mashed together in the kind of concern that would be suffocating if Dean was in a position to properly appreciate it. "Talk to me, man. What's going on?"

Before he can get a single word out, the pain in his head intensifies tenfold, a hot stab shearing from his right temple to his left, and his back _burns._ He drops his head into his hands with a groan, he thinks, and clutches at his skull. Bright lights flash in front of his eyes, and the ringing roars back. He can longer hear or see his brother, or Cas.

Images and sensations pop into his mind like shots, in full color and clarity, ripping him away from the comforting setting of the library, and Sam.

_The two men meet for the first time, eagerly shaking hands._

_Brittle leaves shift and blow across the wide windshield as a plain gold wedding band taps anxiously against the steering wheel._

_A tall, shuttered house stands empty on a quiet street._

_"Come now, Henry. Where's you sense of adventure?"_

A seemingly unending assault, an agonizing parade of everything he's been shown – everything he's _experienced_ – along the way. He's thrust from one scene to the next with a painful, nauseating tug of his mind, and pulled in multiple directions as Henry's other memories begin to seep in.

_Pain stabs in his hand as he reaches into a soft spot in the wall, and he falls back against the hardwood with a gasp._

_He looks down at the music box in his hand, and a smile pulls at the corners of his mouth as he makes his way over to the bed._

_Sickness ravages his body, a vicious fever._

_The mattress dips with a groan as he perches on the edge, and he places a hand on his son's small chest, coaxing the boy from his nightmares._

_"Not to worry, old friend. It's in a safe place."_

_"John," he whispers._

Everything goes mercifully black, but the ringing lingers, fading slowly until he begins to register vague, faraway sounds of scuffing footsteps, a voice in his ear.

"Dean!"

"Yeah," he chokes out, because that murky, familiar voice sounds terrified. Dean's own voice is curiously muffled.

_"Dean."_

He licks his lips, tries again. "Yeah," he rasps, bruised cheek and temple dragging against a smooth, warm surface. He works his eyes open and finds himself face-down against the table. He flattens his palms against the tabletop and shoves up, lifting his horribly heavy head. The side of his face that had been pressed against the table is curiously numb, in a way that hints of raging pain waiting in the wings.

"Dean."

Sam keeps saying his name, the broken, desperate sort of pleading that Dean is usually responsible for putting a stop to.

"I'm okay," he says, but can't manage the strength or volume needed to give the words a lick of truth.

"You are not – " Sam bites his lip, shakes his head. The hand he has wrapped around Dean's upper arm is trembling. "What the hell just happened, Dean?"

"I think – " he starts, stops. What he's about to say doesn't make a lick of sense, but he _knows_ it. "I think they were just telling me that they know what he did." And then, without ceremony, he leans over the arm of his chair and pukes up the beer next to his brother's shoes.

***

_It was…everything, Sammy._

A hoarse, choked admission, followed quickly, though weakly, by another frustrating rendition of _I'm okay, Sam._

Whatever he is, Dean is _not_ okay. Sam had almost believed the strength he felt in Dean's grip as he pulled his arm away, realized belatedly that his brother was using the hold to ground himself against the pain. And there seems to be plenty of pain.

Dean's definitely paler than he should be, but seems to be steadier than he had been in the immediate aftermath of this latest mental assault. He shakes off Sam's concern, and any additional questions he might have about what his brother's just seen.

Sam wants to find a way to save his brother. He needs to. And for the moment at least, that means hitting the books.

They might not yet have an exact plan, but with the knowledge of what the coven is after, they at least have the foundation of one. They also have leverage now – Ellie, who can serve as hook or bait – and the end is in sight. Sam's not sure what that end is, how things are going to go down, but it's looming ahead of them, either way.

Cas has been locked in the bunker with these books for the better part of a week – when he's not running solo witch retrieval ops, that is – but it can't hurt to looks over the texts with fresh eyes. It's unlikely anything helpful will turn up now, but Sam has to stay optimistic in the face of his fear. Because what's happening with his brother – and to his brother – is beginning to terrify him.

He forces a smile, and he tells Dean they're going to figure this out, the eleventh-hour sort of breakthrough they've come to rely on. One of these books is going to turn up the exact right counterspell, the perfect ingredients, and they'll remove those eerie markings on his back and the invasive spell from his mind, and then they can go after the coven the good old-fashioned way. But he's pretty sure Dean isn't buying it, because if there's one person Sam can't lie to, it's his big brother. And if there's one thing his big brother is good at, it's seeing through Sam's bullshit.

Because deep inside, he can't help feeling that it's going to take more than whatever twisted brand of luck the Winchesters have been enjoying the past several years. Time and time again, they step in it, _bad._ There's heartache and pain and sometimes they _die_ , for crying out loud. But they always find a way, and through it all, they're still here. While part of Sam is banking on that twisted luck to get them out of this, part of him knows – given the way the past few months have gone and how they easily _could_ have gone – that well may have finally run dry.

The anger he'd been clinging to has turned the corner to raw, unabated fear. The bunker offers them some semblance of safety from a physical attack, but time is still very much a factor. The warding here isn't doing squat to slow the effects of the spell, isn't dulling the pain it's causing Dean in the slightest. Sam doesn't know what to do for his brother, and that's an all-too familiar acknowledgement of helplessness that settles in his chest like a rock. All the shit he's been through, all the years, all the monsters…there's nothing in his arsenal to pull from, no experience to help his brother out of this. There's nothing he can do when Dean's caught in the painful throes of these memories that have been jammed into his head.

Sam's never felt so damn useless with a book in his hands.

Cas has his own impressive array of materials spread out on the next table, and Sam can't figure it will do any good, but he scours his dad's journal anyway, even though he has the book memorized cover-to-cover and has for years. _Witches bad_ had pretty much been the extent of their experience and training prior to the small coven they encountered in that year Dean's deal was winding down. Not to mention Ruby – and he _really_ tries not to mention Ruby – who'd taught him a couple of things he's sworn to his brother he didn't retain. They've cast a handful of spells themselves. Kid stuff. Things that wouldn't impress, or even raise the eyebrows of, anyone who uses magic regularly. Castiel's literal _eons_ of knowledge gives them a leg-up – usually – but they haven't got a lot of experience with _good_ magic. The magic they've run afoul of has always concerned various pains, agonies, and violent deaths. Curses and hexes, that's what they know.

Rowena could actually prove to be a resource, an asset, but given how they'd parted ways, with a gun in Sam's hand pointed at her head – _Do I need to remind you these are witch-killing bullets?_ – he can't imagine she'll be jumping at the chance to get tangled up with them again.

Yeah. Sam knows what's at stake here, and he's trying to focus, but his eyes keep drifting up from the small print in these tomes to check on Dean.

The physical toll of this spell is tangible. His brother looks like a ghostly shell of himself, like everything that makes him _Dean_ has been sucked out. He can hardly hold his own head up, and Sam can hear the sickly rasp of his every breath, can starkly see how much pain that simple motion is causing. Like Dean's body is asking for more than him than he's able to give. No question, whatever just happened to him went beyond vision or memory. Dean doesn't appear simply distracted or exhausted, but like his entire body has been wracked by an electric charge. And that's not a comparison Sam makes lightly.

Dean is slouched in his chair across the table, skin an unhealthy pallor, fine lines of persistent pain at the corners of his eyes, and he's been staring at the same page for at least ten minutes.

Sam pushes his own book away and rubs at his eyes. "I can't read this anymore. I'm gonna stretch my legs, get some water." He stares across the table, but Dean doesn't even acknowledge that Sam's spoken. "You need anything?"

"Hmm?" The response is delayed and sluggish, like the words had to walk across the table to him. "No, I'm okay."

Sam comes back from the kitchen with a second glass of water anyway and puts it next to his brother's hand. He's going to have to find some food, too, that Dean can keep down, because he needs to keep his strength up. Sam drops a hand to Dean's shoulder and gives it a quick squeeze, offers the least false reassuring smile he can manage, but his brother seems to be momentarily lost – or trapped – in his own mind.

Sam returns to his seat across the table and slams down a new book, flipping open to a random page. He drags his notepad closer and scoops up a pen, then raises his eyes to his brother, who hasn't moved an inch. "Dean?"

Dean's eyes widen, and he swallows, throat bobbing. He looks down at the book lying open in front of him, then his gaze flick to Cas. "Yeah, uh, you guys've got this. I think I'm gonna try to grab a coupla hours."

A harsh chill runs through Sam, one that squeezes his heart and lungs in a vice. "You sure?" Dean's not the napping type. He used to clock a nightly four hours of sleep, and that was before he suffered nightmare-induced insomnia. Anytime he's ever nodded off in the middle of the day, it's been on the heels of being up three straight days on a hunt. Or when he's hurt so bad he just can't play through it any longer.

His brother nods. "Yeah." He looks up, tries to cover his undeniable unwellness with a wide smile. "You know I'm no good with the books, Sammy."

It's true and it's not. Dean's never had the patience for the books and the research, but that in no way means he has an aversion to reading, or that he can't rustle up information when they need it, when it's important.

Sam watches his brother make his way slowly out of the library, with a horribly ill-concealed limp and a hand thrown out more than once to steady himself against a wall or pillar. He knows he should be happy – or at least relieved – that Dean's not fighting this, not exacerbating the situation by pushing himself further than his body can take him. Except, for Dean to willingly take a knee, even from research…that means something. That tightens the knot of unease in Sam's chest.

His brother has always had an annoying, self-destructive habit of concealing – or flat-out _ignoring_ – injuries until they take him to the ground. More than once, Sam has thought they'd walked away from an altercation scot-free only to have Dean drop like a stone on the way to the car. Usually some nasty head wound he'd managed to keep from his brother, and once a deep, gruesome gash across his back that had been bleeding heavily and steadily for over an hour before he'd collapsed mid-stride across a gas station parking lot.

For him to make this concession…that means something.

Sam can feel Castiel's gaze on him from the next table. When he speaks to the angel, he doesn't even look at him. "We need to finish this. _Now._ "

"I know."

They scour the texts until even Cas is rubbing at his temples, until Sam is cross-eyed and has consumed roughly a gallon of coffee. Even so, he yawns as he leans back in his chair and stretches his stiff spine. He glances at his watch, and even though it's only been a few hours, even though Dean is an adult, he feels that tug of fear and responsibility to check on his brother.

The bunker feels different with a witch in it. Sam knows the feeling well enough to recognize it. There's power trapped in the walls here, decades' worth of serious warding carved into the concrete, etched into the iron with holy water and salt. Nothing makes its way into this underground compound uninvited.

Cas brought the witch inside, with the best of intentions. But the air feels different now, sparked and electric. Sam's grown used to the stale smell, a ventilation system that cycles through some fresh air from above but not enough to rid the place of that dank, damp stench. Especially near the dungeon. It stinks of sulfur, from Crowley's visits and Dean's brief demonic stint, and their combined lack of desire to clean any more than they absolutely have to. The bunker has become their home, but they aren't much for housekeeping anymore. Not like Dean's full Susie Homemaker mode when they first moved in.

Dean's door is propped open a few inches, so Sam doesn't feel like quite as much a lurking sleaze this time as he gently nudges it the rest of the way open. He notices immediately that his brother isn't resting, but is sitting on the hard, cold floor with his back against the bedframe. Sam will never understand why his brother chooses to sit in such a blatantly uncomfortable position. It's not like he didn't drop a pretty penny on that memory foam mattress, and he nearly noogied Sam to death to make sure he got the "good chair" in his room.

Dean doesn't seem to have noticed his approach, and Sam's pretty sure the faded, folded photo in his brother's hand is the one with Dad, from when they were kids. He doesn't have the best angle, but the look on Dean's face is as open and broken as it had been in that motel room when he'd first caught a glimpse of their young father in Henry's memory. Sam needs to make his presence known, _now._

He knocks lightly on the door, rousing his brother's attention.

Dean's been moving slowly lately but he tucks the photo away under his leg and replaces it with a half-drunk beer so fast Sam's not sure he didn't completely imagine the sight of his brother holding it in the first place.

"Hey," he opens, cramming his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He lifts an apologetic shoulder. "It was open."

"Yeah, hey," Dean returns, his voice gravelly and painful to hear. The lighting in the room isn't to blame for the sallow tint to his face, but it's certainly not doing him any favors.

"Get any rest?"

"Nah."

Sam bobs his head. There's a pill bottle on the table next to Dean's bed, one of the scammed prescriptions for painkillers. Good ones, it looks like. Another concession. He frowns. "How are you feeling?"

Dean eyes follows his brother's gaze, narrow. "Well, my eyebrows don't hurt," he answers, picking at the label of his beer bottle.

"That's good," Sam says lamely. Another tickle of energy toys with the fine hairs at the back of his neck, and he ducks father into the room. "You feel that?"

"The chill in the air that smells like evil skank?" The corner of Dean's mouth lifts. "Thought it was just me."

"What do you wanna do about her?" Because this is Dean's call to make, in the end. He's the one who'd been attacked, who'd been drugged and dragged off into the night. The one who's been hurt and tortured and had his mind fucked with. As much as he might one, Sam's not going to pull the trigger on this one. And _God_ , does he want to.

"We can't just leave her down there?"

"Do you _want_ to leave her down there?"

"No. Guess not." Dean tips back his beer and drains what's left in the bottle. He makes a face, and for what it's worth, Sam's sort of impressed it took his brother long enough to drink the beer that it went warm on him. His eyes shift to the guns displayed with uncharacteristic neatness on the wall. "Can I shoot her?"

Sam crosses his arms, shifts his weight. "We need her, Dean. If we need to set up the meet."

"I'm pretty sure they'll find me, Sam." There's no joking tone in his voice this time. He's safe from tracking spells while they're in the bunker, but they can't stay locked away in here forever.

"So, what, you just wanna go walking around town with a 'kick me' sign on your back?" Sam sighs and crosses the room to sink into the chair at his brother's desk. "We're not using you as bait, man."

"I'm already bait, Sam." Dean moves his tented leg, and Sam catches a glimpse of the photograph he'd stashed from view.

A thought crosses Sam's mind, morbid and unfair, but he's too tired, worn too threadbare, to bite his tongue before it slips out. "Do you think it was worth it?"

Dean's eyebrows jump, then his gaze narrows in suspicion. "Do I think what was worth it?"

"The visions," Sam blurts. "The memories. Seeing…seeing Dad."

Dean lowers his eyes, chuffs a not-laugh that has Sam thinking his brother is about to pop up from the floor and slug him. Maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing, for either of them. His complexion sucks, and the bruises on the left side of his face stand out like a garish billboard advertising his mortality. But that's only what's on the surface. Sam knows there's plenty more he can't see, damage that runs miles below the surface what his brother will allow to be witnessed. The mask Dean's spent years constructing, the wall he's built carefully brick by brick has been completely steamrolled by what's happened to him. By the weight that's been placed on his shoulders, the _pain._

No. Obviously, none of this experience has been _worth it._

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt lines used in this chapter:
> 
> "Pulling out the four-dollar words?" Sam raises his eyebrows. "I'm impressed." - okaaaaay, I'll admit I stretched this one a bit. But I consider it used.
> 
> Suddenly panic-stricken once more, Dean crosses the distance between them.
> 
> If there's one person he can't lie to, it's his big brother.
> 
> All the shit he's been through, all the years, all the monsters...there's nothing in his arsenal to pull from, no experience to help him out of this.


End file.
